


let your inhibitions fall to the wayside

by arysthaeniru



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Navel-Gazing, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-14 02:28:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5726380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysthaeniru/pseuds/arysthaeniru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shiraishi's life fell apart seven months ago, really, with the loss of his sister's wonderful, teasing smile. A visit from a mysterious stranger shakes up his miserable existence, of course, but it's a confusing spiral of emotion and pain, and loss, and really, he's not sure if he's getting better, or getting worse.</p><p>[indefinitely on hiatus!! sorry]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Scrapbook](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4277658) by [sugamins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugamins/pseuds/sugamins). 



> There is no plan for this story. It was all just a way to indulge the shirayuki that I never managed to make happen from a scrapped vampire!au and it spun wildly out of control. But I enjoy writing it, and I hope you'll enjoy reading it.

The first time that Shiraishi met the Devil, the sky had brewed with vague discontent. 

July had been a hot, sunny month and the humidity had been pressing at Shiraishi’s skin for all of his shifts at work, under the awning of the old organic market stall down in the middle of their sleepy suburban town, but yet, on that day, it had been cloudy, oppressively so. The humidity hadn’t left though, and it pressed down around him, like a heavy weight tied to his sweaty shoulders. 

Still, he mused, as he reached out to plant another half-grown flower in the large, slightly messy garden, he’d experienced worse, under the hot sun at Shitenhouji, running laps until he collapsed. The good old days, back when things had been less confusing and he’d had much less responsibility. 

With a slightly melancholic smile, Shiraishi leant back on his heels, and wiped the sweat from his brow, heartily, with his forearm, trying to not let the fertilizer, smeared all over his garden gloves, mess up his hair. He’d already washed his hair last night, and he didn’t particularly feel like doing it again this evening (though a second shower was inevitable with this heat). There was no real reason for Shiraishi to have suddenly bought all of the flowers in their store and place them in his front garden, of his childhood home, but he’d been feeling stressed lately, a vague pinching behind his eyes and twinges across his lower back. And no matter how frustrated he became with the world, plants were never fickle, and it was easy to lose himself in the act of giving life to plants, and feel at peace, among the waving flower strands. 

Still, it was hard work, planting all of these flowers, especially in this heat. Perhaps it had been a bad idea to clear out the entire store, his muscles already had that vague ache which meant he’d be sore in the morning, Still, he felt lighter than he’d felt in weeks. He’d just take a small break now, to catch his breath. 

Shiraishi glanced out towards the road. It was almost eerily deserted for this time in the afternoon, when most people returned home from working in the big city. All he could hear was the howling of the distant breeze. Not even a peep from the other houses on the street. Shiraishi lifted an eyebrow, with a little confusion. How bizarre. 

Still, it was getting darker behind the clouds, so Shiraishi turned back to his planting. He only had three more to plant, and then he could go inside and properly relax. Scooping up another handful of fertilizer, Shiraishi leant down to pat it down into a pre-dug hole in the ground, smiling slightly. Just as he was about to pick up the next pot, even the distant breeze completely halted, leaving Shiraishi in complete silence, only his breaths and the crinkling of the fertilizer bag around him.

Shiraishi turned around, feeling vaguely uneasy and his eyes settled upon a lone figure walking down the pavement, dressed all in black, looking rather lackdaisy as he strolled along. Shiraishi’s eyes fluttered to the plants of his neighbours, that seemed to slowly wilt and curl up as he passed by them and he swallowed nervously, turning back to the stranger, whose footsteps were suddenly audible, louder than even the beating of his heart and his slightly shallow breaths. 

There was something very wrong about the entire situation, but yet, the man looked entirely normal, as he drew closer, his beautiful features furrowed, in a faint frown. “G-good afternoon!” called Shiraishi, as the man passed by his garden, and managed a weak smile. 

“Wouldn’t it be evening now? asked the man, coolly, and his voice sent shivers down Shiraishi’s spine. Velvety and slightly soft, it was not how he’d expected the man, with delicate features, sharp cheekbones and vague smudges under his eyes, to sound like. 

“Probably.” Shiraishi answered, with a light laugh. “But it’s not like you can tell.” he said, gesturing up to the clouded sky. “It’s been horrible weather today.”

The man just nodded, neatly polished oxfords touching the front of Shiraishi’s lawn. Shiraishi watched the grass wither up and blacken, as if they were being burnt, just by the presence of the other man. “I’m used to it.” he said, lightly, “But it’s not particularly pleasant weather, no.” His smile when he looked up was not particularly nice and as if struck by lightning, Shiraishi suddenly realized who this man was and exactly why everything about him was screaming to run away. 

Shiraishi cleared his throat nervously, wondering whether there was a particular reason for Death himself to pay him a visit. There was nobody around the street, probably because of his presence. The pressing question of Death’s purpose was there, but still. The man didn’t seem like he was in a hurry to bring it up, and Shiraishi wasn’t in a particular hurry to die. “My mother said that there’s only one thing to make this sort of weather better, and that’s barley tea.” Shiraishi offered, evenly. “Would you like a glass?”

“Why not.” said the stranger, and it didn’t even sound like a question with how monotonous it sounded. Still, that was better than nothing. Shiraishi shucked off his gloves, and got up to go inside. The front door was unlocked, and he slipped inside, not shutting the door behind him as he entered the slight cool of his house. Toeing off his shoes, quickly, Shiraishi rinsed his hands under the tap, to get rid of the dirt that still clung to his fingernails, despite the gloves. He grabbed two glasses from the cupboard, and pulled open his fridge, where the jug stood, cooling from where he’d made it that morning. 

He poured out two glasses and quickly returned to where death still stood, having not moved from his spot. Still, the destruction had spread across his entire lawn, and Shiraishi frowned a little. It hadn’t quite reached his poor flowers or the bushes, but it was still a little worrying. “Here you go.” he said, passing the cup to the man, regardless. Their fingers brushed, and Shiraishi had half-expected to drop dead, but apparently, that was just something for the plants, since nothing dramatic happened, except for Death accepting the glass and taking a long, careful sip of tea, eyes not leaving Shiraishi’s face. 

Admittedly, this isn’t quite how Shiraishi had expected Death would look, he’d been imagining an old man filled with experience, or even a skeleton. Not a man who looked around the same age as Shiraishi, vaguely tired and dressed like a movie-star, with his black button-down shirt and neat winter coat, despite the weather. 

“Shiraishi Kuranosuke.” said Shiraishi, before he could stop himself, offering a hand out to shake. The man regarded the hand coolly, as if it was something in a complex art museum, and after a few awkward moments, Shiraishi pulled it back, with a slightly sheepish smile. “Though I suppose you already knew that.”

The man smiled again, but it was less outwardly malicious, just even and neutral. He tilted his head to the side a little, the ends of his blue-black ponytail brushing against his shoulder and it was so decidedly human, that Shiraishi felt shocked. 

“I–do you like it?” asked Shiraishi, taking a sip to it himself. A little too much sugar, he thought, and hoped that this wasn’t a reason for Death to smite him down. 

Finishing the glass, his eyes flickered shut for a moment before they settled upon him with more intensity. “Yes.” he said, evenly. “It’s very nice.”

“Ah–Good.” Shiraishi said, unable to finish his own glass under the force of that gaze. Well, it seemed the man was waiting for Shiraishi to bring it up, and the curiosity was practically scratching at his throat. “Is there any particular reason for Death to come and visit me?”

The man blinked, momentarily, and chuckled, low and beautiful. “I’m not Death.” he said, a slightly amused smirk on his face. “Though you’re close enough. Want to take another guess?” 

Shiraishi took another long glance over the man, and stared at the bush that he’d planted when he was ten years old, starting to wither now, despite being almost five feet away from him, cowering as if from evil–Oh. “You’re wearing less red than I expected the Devil to wear.” he said, honestly, and this made the Devil laugh again, with amused approval. 

“I’m not a fan of bright colours.” was his only response, his dark-blue eyes slowly lidded and languid. “As for my purpose, does it really matter? I am currently here, so I wonder, what it is that you’re going to do about it, Shiraishi Kuranosuke?” 

Well, if that wasn’t putting him on the spot, Shiraishi didn’t know. Shiraishi licked his lips, eyes lingering upon the pale skin of the Devil, soft and milky like the orchids that Shiraishi had planted last year before they’d died from lack of water. He could feel his cheeks heat up, but yet, he felt icy cold in his heart, a strange contradiction in every way. “What do you feel about white? It’s not technically a bright colour, because it’s not actually a colour, but then it would be far more practical for this weather.” he asked, avoiding the question, instead. Honestly, what did anyone do when the Devil showed up on their doorstep? 

The Devil snorted, softly. “Of all the questions you could ask, it’s that?”

Shiraishi shrugged, wondering why it was that he was getting judged for his conversation topics by the Devil. This would just give Kenya further reason to tease him about being abnormal. Not that Shiraishi thought that Kenya would believe him about this particular experience. “It’s polite to carry a conversation on more mundane things at first. I think we’re not close enough for me to start asking about your feelings.” he said, amused smile playing on his lips. 

The Devil leant back, tucking one hand into his pocket, looking painfully casual and normal. If it weren’t for the fact that his glass was starting to slowly ooze into liquid around the Devil’s slender, beautiful fingers, Shiraishi could almost pretend this was just a normal stranger. “There aren’t many humans who offer a drink to the Devil and try to carry out conversation with him. Few enough people do that for other humans.” the Devil murmured, a slightly more contemplative look in his eyes. 

Shiraishi wasn’t quite sure if that was a compliment or not. “My mother and father always emphasized politeness to strangers.” he said, easily. 

“Even hospitality to the Devil?” asked the man, as the cup finished melting and gurgled a little on Shiraishi’s lawn, slowly recooling into a useless slab of glass now away from his fingertips.

“Well, doesn’t the Devil need some courtesy the most?” asked Shiraishi, carefully. “If it’s so rare, why not?”

“Why not indeed.” said the Devil, corner of his mouth pulling up into a wry smile. There was a slight moment of pause between them and the man exhaled, pulling out an ebony-black pocket-watch from his pocket with an expression of annoyance. “Well then.”

“Something the matter?” asked Shiraishi, automatically, not quite sure what to make of the fact that even his accessories matched the colour scheme. Would laughing at the Devil send him to Hell? Probably. He kept his mild humour to himself, just in case.

“Nothing.” said the Devil, coolly. “I quite like you.” he continued, despite the abrupt segue, ignoring Shiraishi’s slightly muffled splutter of surprise. “So much so that I rather think I’ll come back here tomorrow.” 

“I–well–good?” Shiraishi said, eyes watering slightly from sheer surprise. Was being liked by the devil a bad thing? Probably. It didn’t seem like a good thing, in any case. 

“Good.” mocked the Devil, before laughing again, and raising his hand in farewell. “Goodbye, Shiraishi Kuranosuke.”

“Goodbye Devil-san.” Shiraishi said, before his words caught up with him. ‘You’ve got to have a better name than that.” he called after his retreating back, slouching just like any other college student. 

The Devil turned on his heel, light amusement in his eyes. “You can call me Yukimura.” the Devil called back, easily, waving again, his slender fingers curling lazily, before he shoved his hands back in his pockets and trolled away down the road. Shiraishi blinked, and he vanished. Almost instantly, the breeze picked up again, and from afar, the sound of cars coming down the road returned. 

Glancing down at the grass, now green, with no hint that it had looked like the remnants of a forest fire, Shiraishi felt vaguely disoriented. The melted puddle of glass still lay against his lawn, the only sign of anything abnormal happening, preventing Shiraishi from blaming this on a mere hallucination. There was a brief flash of lightning from afar and then the sky rumbled, disapprovingly, so Shiraishi turned back to his plants, trying to plant them before the rain reached his part of the town.


	2. Chapter 2

It was like this most nights. He would drop into a deep sleep, dream of something innocuous about work or about hazy days spent in his garden, letting his plants comfort him, but something would change and he would always end up here, at this stupid fairground, holding Yukari’s hand as she chattered on about something. The sun was bright and hot. Not a single cloud in the sky on Yukari’s birthday. At the time, he’d thought that it was perfect, but now it almost frustrated him. 

The theme park was crowded with people, love-struck couples holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes, parents wearily dragging along their over-excited children, large groups of teenagers cheerfully winning prizes from stalls and stuffing themselves with takoyaki and cheap candyfloss. Typical scenes from any sort of public event, but yet, all Shiraishi could focus on was Yukari’s small hand, laced through his. 

“Are you even listening to me, nii-san?” she demanded, pouting softly, her pink lips filled with annoyance.

“No~” he found his mouth saying, regardless of what he really wanted to say to her, teasing and lilting, just like he’d always been for her. “Why don’t you try again, hmm?”

“You’re so annoying!” she declared, throwing his hand away and crossing her arms over her chest. Newly fifteen, with the teenager pout to match, and Shiraishi couldn’t help but call her cute, and pinch her cheeks happily. She struggled away, but there was a reluctant smile on her face, as well. 

“Gross!” she screeched, as she pranced away, bright brown hair bouncing against her back as she fled to her parents for safety, as Shiraishi chased her. His parents scoffed as Yukari slipped behind them and his father, cheerfully balding, crouched down as if to fight Shiraishi. His mother, frail and slender, just giggled, with a cheerful honesty that Shiraishi loved of her. “Save me, Papa!” Yukari declared and their father straightened up again, wiping his brow of sweat. 

“Kuranosuke, are you nineteen or not? Leave her alone.” he said, but then he winked and stepped aside, letting Shiraishi dive forward. to pull her up into a huge hug. 

She struggled free, as people turned to look at them, laughing good-naturedly or just pointing. Shiraishi didn’t care, he’d always drawn people’s attention, being large and sunny, with a pleasant smile for anyone to see. He was attractive too, and he knew it and everybody else knew it. Nowadays, Shiraishi preferred to withdraw to the background, unwilling to have any attention on him, but this had been back when things had been different, and Shiraishi. couldn’t. change. anything. 

Yukari stuck her tongue out at him, and loudly whined that her parents hadn’t gone even one ride with her, and why didn’t they leave stupid Kura here so the three of them could go on the Ferris Wheel? Helplessly bowled over by her cute charm, his parents said yes, every night without fail. And no matter how much Shiraishi tried to change what happened, screamed, moved, attempted to warn them, tried to distract them, it would never change. He would just be frozen here like a stone statue, watching them stand in the queue with a fixed gaze. 

He couldn’t even look away, that was the worst part, he was forced to watch as they mounted the creaky ferris wheel, forced to watch with mounting anticipation in his throat and a pain behind his ribcage, weak and unavoidable, as the ferris wheel rose, swaying easily in the wind. Forced to watch the eventual pause as the machine broke down, leaving his parents and Yukari stranded near the top, and forced to watch as the screws of the carriage unwound and let the carriage topple downwards, crushing five people walking by with the sheer weight of it.

The sound of bone cracking and blood spilling everywhere, in a vaguely gloopy fashion filled his ears and he could hear the hisses of hydraulic machinery and the screams from everyone around him. He knew they were dead, knew that this was wrong, and knew that he could just walk away, not look at their broken, pierced, shattered sacks of flesh. But despite him now having full control over his body again, his response was always to run towards the crash, screaming their names, tears running down his cheeks anyway. 

His knees dropped to the ground, soaked with blood as he tugged at the door of the ferris wheel, to pull out the still-dying Yukari, not even caring about the other people beneath the carriage who were being pulled out by others, screaming and wailing in agony, or just groaning as death took them. 

“Yuka-chan!” he sobbed, as the smell hit him, the smell of blood, tangy and iron, and bones and gore and urine, mixing together in a pungent stench of death, steeping into his bones. It almost made him want to throw up, but he couldn’t do anything but stroke back her hair and watch as she took three last, gurgling breaths and passed away, eyes glassy, reflecting the shining, taunting sun above him.

The dream always ended there, and when Shiraishi woke up, the thunderstorm was still well-underway, thunder rumbling reassuringly outside. Groaning miserably, Shiraishi staggered out of bed, his blonde hair disheveled and eyes vaguely bloodshot. He’d always sort of considered himself a morning person, happy to stretch and do yoga at ridiculous hours, just to get himself limber for the rest of the day, but when he only ever managed to get three or four hours of decent sleep a night, it was hard to be the cool, composed person he’d once been. 

Not when they were gone. The worst part of the dream was about how it always gave him false hope, at the beginning, able to see their smiling faces again, gentle and kind, as they’d had fun. It was painful, to know that they’d died happy on Yukari’s birthday, died under the sun they’d all loved, died too early for Shiraishi’s liking. 

He’d watched the officials put their bodies into bodybags, like they were sacks of flour and that had probably been the worst part of it all, because they had been so much more. So vibrant, even when filled with worries. His mother, beautiful as she set up flowers all over the house and cooked easy dinners and taught at the nursery at the other side of town, her voice never loud, only ever firm when it needed to be, His father, balding and with a growing paunch, but with a raucous humour, and tender care for all of them, in the form of deep large hugs, and stupid bedtime stories, that made both he and Yukari descend into untameable giggles, and made their abdomens ache for at least half an hour afterwards. And then Yukari herself, his bright, beautiful younger sister, charming and sweet, and occasionally whiny. She’d thought the sun shone out of his eyes, but still managed to think she was better, and she was his spoiled little princess and he wasn’t entirely sure he cared about how thoroughly he indulged her every demand. He missed them. He missed them so much, and the dream kept bringing them back, every time that Shiraishi tried to push that away, and move on, happily. And he hated it and loved it, simultaneously, but couldn’t help but linger in the dream, and watch their smiles and wish that they were really here with him, right now. 

After brushing his teeth, washing his face and attempting to slap some colour back into his cheeks, Shiraishi went for his phone, which flashed mildly on his bedside cabinet, showing one unread voicemail message. Shiraishi pulled the phone downstairs with him and let the message play out as he heated up some hot water.

“My dear boy,” his employer’s voice ground out, soft and trilling. He could almost see her wizened face, and her gnarled hands patting against his back, reassuringly, as he worked the long hours for her. “It’s simply dreadful weather today. Do consider staying at home today and taking a day off. I don’t think anybody will venture out today and there’s no restocking to be done.”

Shiraishi almost called her back, to tell her that he could come, but the hot water boiled, and Shiraishi paused. When was the last time he _hadn’t_ worked? Right, he’d been a working robot ever since he’d first landed this job seven months ago, here in the house of his parents, instead of out in the city where his university was. Everybody had understood when Shiraishi had taken a gap year in the middle of his studies, to deal with his family’s funerals, expenses and other affairs, but yet. He had finished with all of that three months and he was still here, still in the house where he had grown up, half expecting Yukari to pad down the staircase any moment now, sleepy eyes and cute voice, demanding that he make her hot chocolate since he’s home and being useless. 

He swallowed past the lump in his throat and made himself tea, to take out and watch the storm pass by. Now all the affairs had finished, and he’d stopped crying every goddamn day, it made sense to go back to university, go back to his studies to be a lawyer, go back to everything he’d put on hold. Go back to an apartment where the ghosts of his family didn’t linger, go back to his friends and his social life, instead of out here, in a tiny suburban town, where everybody knew everybody and everybody knew him and pitied him.

Nobody would begrudge him that. not even one person. His filial duty was long since finished. But yet, Shiraishi was still here. 

He ran a hand over his eyes, wearily, and before he could stop himself, he opened the kitchen window, to half-mast. The wind was positively howling and the spray of rain instantly hit his face, soaking every part of him, in the warm water of the rain. Now that he could feel it, the outside was still humid and warm and disgusting, nothing like the cool AC of his house. It was tempestuous and wild, and Shiraishi’s eyes were stinging from the force of the water and the wind against them, and his hair was even more of a mess, but still, he couldn’t quite bring himself to step away from the window, step away from the destruction and the mess rushing into his house.

He breathed it all in and felt at peace, almost for a moment, like the eye in the calm of the storm, except he could feel the full brunt of its power wash over him. 

The phone beeped from the kitchen counter, asking whether he wanted to delete the voicemail and Shiraishi abruptly pulled himself back from from the sensations he’d felt against the window. With a slightly longing sigh, he shut the window again, and slowly walked over the kitchen, leaving a small trail of water behind him. His tea was ruined, and he was completely soaked through, his t-shirt almost see-through now, and the flannel of his trousers curling up and trailing the floor, almost mopping it. 

He could almost see a layer of dust being removed, wherever he walked, and well, that was as much a sign as any. Amused smile playing over his lips, Shiraishi shook his head, and pulled out the cleaning supplies from underneath the sink. Well, he knew what he was doing for the rest of today. After a shower perhaps.

(X)

With a slightly exhausted sigh, Shiraishi collapsed back against his dining table, letting the sweat run along his back and his once-muscular arms. He had cleaned the house without break today, upstairs and down, only pausing to make himself lunch and a snack for the evening. It had been harder work than what he usually did at the store, but it was nice, to be able to see the original colours of his house again.

Still, he wondered if there were too many memories. He’d been cleaning so quickly and focused so thoroughly upon getting rid of stains and moving belongings and dusting, that he hadn’t stopped to think about how it would look afterwards. His mother had always been very obsessive about cleanliness, saying that it created a healthy person, and Shiraishi had always agreed, but in the past few months, he’d let it down, unable to do anything besides cry or work. But now, spotless, and gleaming, the house felt almost too familiar, like his mother was going to breeze down the staircase, dump a pile of laundry at his feet, before giving in at his exhausted features and doing it herself.

Across the room, he could see the permanent pen markings against the edge of the kitchen door, where he and Yukari had measured their heights as kids, competing with each other on tippy-toes, and the memory sent a lump to his throat. Goddamnit. He turned away from the kitchen, turning his gaze outside. The storm hadn’t even let up once that day and Shiraishi watched the raindrops trace their way down his window, joining with each other to speed up momentarily, before crawling down slower, only pulled down by the wind. He urged them on, as if watching a race, and it was easy to lose himself in that.

When the sound of the rain against his windows petered out into complete silence, despite Shiraishi’s eyes still tracing the rain across his window, he straightened upwards and looked properly forward, instead of towards the dark storm clouds. At the edge of the front garden, slouching and wearing the same clothes as yesterday, except for a floppy black hat with a wide brim, was the Devil. _Yukimura_ , corrected Shiraishi and he instantly stood up, heading for the front door, leaning out into the rain. He’d only really vaguely remembered the Devil’s promise to return, but seeing him there, waiting brought it all back. That bizarre conversation and everything that had come with it. 

The water spray hit his face again, but with less force. The wind had stopped howling, and Yukimura stood on the pavement, dark blue eyes scanning over Shiraishi, even through all of the rain. “Come inside?” asked Shiraishi, not needing to raise his voice, in the absolute silence. 

Yukimura’s footsteps across the grass were crunchy and as he drew closer, he was completely dry, a faint hissing sound from his clothes as they steamed a little. Shiraishi looked up at the sky again and back down at Yukimura’s clothes. Had he…evaporated the rain? For a moment Shiraishi wondered if Yukimura would even be able to cross the threshold, but his shoes impacted against the neat, polished floor and Shiraishi shut the door behind him, shaking away the rain drops from his hair, easily. 

“I didn’t make any tea today. But I have some cookies and lemonade.” he said, easily, as he padded across to the dining room, adjacent to the kitchen and Yukimura followed, removing the brimmed hat to tuck under his arm. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t.” Yukimura’s voice was slightly softer today, as he pulled out one of the dining table chairs to sit on, next to the one that Shiraishi had been slumped against. It was the chair where Yukari had always sat, and for a moment there was a pang in Shiraishi’s chest, but he shook it off, as he grabbed the lemonade from the fridge and the cookies from inside the oven. This time, he pulled out ceramic mugs and poured the lemonade there. 

“Please don’t melt my cups again.” Shiraishi asked, evenly, as he placed the things on the table. Clearly, the the way that Shiraishi hadn’t vapourized yesterday, there was some sort of control over it, and Shiraishi rather liked his cutlery. His father would never forgive him if he broke all of the cups serving the Devil. 

“Sorry.” apologized Yukimura, not sounding particularly apologetic. Shiraishi couldn’t help but stare at Yukimura helped himself to a cookie, nibbling on one absently, as he placed his hat down in the centre of the table and looked around the house curiously. When the supposed representation of evil was _nibbling_ on cookies, Shiraishi felt that he had to rethink a lot of what he had been taught. 

“The lemonade’s not got as much sugar as the tea did, but I can add some, if you like.” Shiraishi said, breaking the silence, awkwardly, when the Devil caught him staring, with an amused quirk in his features at Shiraishi’s embarrassment. 

“It tastes fine.” said Yukimura, without fanfare, leaning forward, his hair flopping in front of his pale skin. The movement was so…. so normal that Shiraishi had to look away, out the window, to not stare again. He was usually someone who was good at talking to people, making friends easily. But he was out of practise, having spoken to very few people since the death of his parents, except for his employer, and even there, he said little as he worked, preferring to lose himself completely in his work and his thoughts. Besides, what did you ask the Devil? 

It was easier to focus on the rain, and listen to the soft exhales of breath from the Devil, and the sound of quiet drinking. “Do you like storms, Shiraishi?” asked Yukimura, almost making Shiraishi jump.

“As much as you can.” said Shiraishi, after a moment of thought. But that begged a little more explanation so he turned back to the Devil, who was nursing the cup, eyes focused on Shiraishi, unblinking and ever piercing. “I always thought of myself as someone who prefers the sun. I live in Osaka for a reason,” he said, offering Yukimura a smile. “But I have an appreciation for rain. Too much of anything is bad. The world needs balance. Too much rain will destroy my plants, but so will too much sun. You need the rain to understand why we love the sun, and you need to sun to love the rain. And I’ve not been particularly fond of the sun recently.”

Shiraishi’s throat closed. He didn’t know why he’d said that last sentence, but there was almost a look of understanding in Yukimura’s eyes. “Because your family died on a sunny day?” he asked, coolly. 

“I suppose.” said Shiraishi, voice a little distant. “There’s also the fact that I work outside in the scorching heat all day, that would put anybody off the sun for a bit.” His laugh felt weak to his ears, but Yukimura also laughed, higher-pitched and soft. 

“I suppose it would.” said Yukimura, easily, slender fingers tapping against the brim of his hat. Shiraishi felt his gaze being directed there, unable to quite understand why the Devil acted like any other person, if a little more unnerving. “You have a good understanding of balance. There aren’t many people who understand the internal balance of the world.”

“Well you know, they’re only the basic teachings of Buddhism.” Shiraishi, wryly, leaning back in chair, “Suffering is necessary in order to understand life. Bliss without pain is just empty, you don’t understand what happiness is without having felt sad once.” He felt like Chitose, spouting off philosophy on random tangents, but it was perhaps the least strange topic to entertain with the Devil. 

Yukimura smiled, wryly, finishing the glass off, his adam’s apple bobbing a little. “Yes. It is easy for anyone to say them. But you actually believe them, that is the impressive part.”

“Thank you?” asked Shiraishi, feeling thrown off, and not really liking it. That uncomfortable flushing feeling, of being cold and hot and feverish all at the same time was returning and he really wasn’t feeling like doing this. Shiraishi also took a cookie, and started to eat, carefully.

“What does a devil even do all day?” he asked, curiously, reaching forward for his glass and Yukimura raised an eyebrow, perfect and arch, pouring himself more lemonade. 

“A devil? I am _the_ Devil. There’s only one of me. You’re thinking of demons, or kami, of which there are several.” His speech was lilting and formal, and surprising pleasant on the ears, now that Shiraishi got to hear more of his voice. Full sentences now, was he coaxing the Devil out of his shell? Still, the Devil seemed to have an awfully important opinion of himself. “As for what I do, I spread chaos. Encourage harbingers of destruction. Watch natural disasters, urge them to become bigger and more devastating than they are. Influence important people to cause evil.” Yukimura looked up at Shiraishi, and smirked lightly, sweetly and Shiraishi felt his chest constrict with sudden fear. 

“You would think if you wanted someone to do evil things, you wouldn’t outright tell them your plan.” Shiraishi said, with a shrug. “That seems rather counterproductive.”

“You’d be surprised at how often it works.” Yukimura said, with a shrug. “Some people don’t need much of a push to do awful deeds. That being said,” he said, pausing to take a sip from his cup, “That’s not my purpose here.”

“Or you could be lulling me into a false sense of security.” Shiraishi pointed out, finishing his cookie, but he did feel like he was protesting for the sake of continuing conversation. There was nothing that Shiraishi was important enough to do. he wasn’t on the verge of world domination, and he didn’t own some huge company. There was nothing he could really affect by going a bit evil. He lived in the middle of nowhere, after all. 

Which would mean that the Devil wasn’t here on business, but because he wanted to be. 

“I could be. What would you do about it?” asked Yukimura, and his eyelashes fluttered a little.

“Offer you more sugar cookies and stifle the evilness with sugar?” suggested Shiraishi and this startled a laugh out of Yukimura, long and loud. Shiraishi smiled to himself as well and settled back against his chair, more comfortable instantly with the beautiful smile across Yukimura’s face. Disarmingly beautiful. The perfect disguise for evil, really. If Shiraishi didn’t know better, he would fall for a face like that. That was a face that made people listen, follow orders, jump off cliffs, set things on fire, without even a word of protest. A dangerous face. But beautiful nonetheless. 

“I think you would have some difficulty with that. I cause destruction without even having to try.” Yukimura said, easily. 

“So do my teammates, but they aren’t evil.” Shiraishi replied automatically, thinking of Kintarou’s penchant for throwing things around and destroying things when he got angry, and Ishida’s ability to crush an actual stone to pieces. 

“It’s about capability, not innate nature. You said it yourself, everything is about balance. Humans can decide whether they want to destroy something or not. Me…well. I try. It’s not easy to stop your natural state from escaping.” There was a slightly sad smile and Shiraishi almost felt an internal need to protect him, fight whatever was making him sad. He quashed those feelings as quickly as possible, but stared at the Devil, slouching in his kitchen, drinking lemonade, his beautiful face attempting to seduce him to the dark side. What the hell was going on? 

“Well, you’re good at control.” Shiraishi offered, with a slight shrug, pushing away his conflicted feeling about what was going on. “You haven’t destroyed anything today.” He gave the cookies a significant look and the wooden chair, which was like perfect kindling for someone who could make raindrops evaporate and grass curl up and die. 

Yukimura looked at Shiraishi, closely and with confusion for a few moments, before laughing, softly. “I said that I wouldn’t.”

“You apologized, there’s a difference.” Shiraishi argued. And the apology hadn’t even sounded like a real apology. 

“It was implied.” Yukimura dismissed, leaning back in his chair for the first time that day. 

“Not enough.” Shiraishi countered, watching the line of Yukimura’s body, perfectly relaxed and languid. The perfect picture of debauchery, he supposed, both of them here, with the silent rain outside and the empty plate of cookies in front of them. 

“You want me to make a promise? Draw a contract with the devil?” asked Yukimura, eyes sparkling with hidden mirth. He propped his oxfords up on the table and Shiraishi didn’t tell him off, though he could almost hear his mother scolding them both. 

Instead, he leant forward to pick up the empty plates and mugs, to rinse them in the sink. He’d wash them later, after dinner. “I’m training to be a lawyer, I’m good at loopholes. I’d make sure you couldn’t break our terms.”

Yukimura tilted his head back and laughed, almost helplessly for a whole minute. It was a pleasant sound, filling the eaves of the house, and for a moment, he could almost hear his parents and Yukari’s laughs mixed in with that rich, velvety voice. It hurt, but was beautiful. “You have a high opinion of your capabilities.” said Yukimura finally, wiping away tears of mirth from his face, almost split apart by the startlingly bright grin. Still, it felt like it was silently condescending. 

Funny that he said that, because it was exactly what Shiraishi had thought about him. 

“It’s not overconfidence. I’ve always had to be perfect, so I end up being perfect.” Shiraishi, simply returning to take his seat again. “If I need to make sure the devil won’t cheat me by writing the perfect legal document, then I will." 

"The perfect son.” mused Yukimura, with a light smirk. “The perfect leader, the perfect friend. Except, you’re not really meeting anyone’s expectations out here, are you?” he asked, eyebrow rising. 

The words sent a chill down Shiraishi’s spine and the humour he’d had throughout the conversation vanished. He opened his mouth and shut it three times, before he shook his head. It was such an offhand comment, but it hurt. It was what he’d been quietly wondering, silently, in the back of his mind for weeks, and now, Yukimura had vocalized it and everything felt wrong, and he wanted to throw his hands up in the air, because what if Yukimura really was trying to turn him evil, returning to the city and becoming a perfect lawyer could bring real trouble… what had he been thinking, of course he could become important for the Devil. Anybody could become important in their own way. General Tojo had been nobody important until he’d started acting as a government official. 

“I can see I’ve outstayed my welcome.” Yukimura murmured, rising from his chair, placing the hat back on his hat, adjusting it over his hair, easily. “Thank you for the lemonade, it tasted very nice.”

Shiraishi nodded as Yukimura walked away towards the door, not accompanying him there. The sound of footsteps echoing filled the room and if he focused, he could hear slightly soft breaths, careful and slightly accusatory. As the door opened in the other room, Shiraishi closed his eyes and sprung up from his chair, before Yukimura could close the door behind him and before Shiraishi could regret it. “I’m making spaghetti tomorrow evening. If you want to come for dinner, I’ve been told that’s my best dish." 

Yukimura turned around to meet Shiraishi’s eyes, amusement and a little surprise in his eyes. He just nodded, and tugged on the brim of his hat, before he walked forward and out of sight. He knew that he’d gone, when the wind started up again with more force.


	3. Chapter 3

His dreams that night were the same, his family dying in pain, the screams of the world around him, and his own crippling sense of being completely and utterly useless. He woke up at the sound of his alarm going off, and he staggered to his feet, groaning loudly. God, he missed being a morning person, he really hated these frenzied hours of sleep, that only really made him more tired than anything. 

After brushing his hair into a vaguely presentable fashion, he peered outside of his bedroom window. It was still a little cloudy, but there was no howling storm anymore, which meant that Shiraishi was free to go to work. Leaving a quick voicemail of notification to tell the old lady that he would be in work that day, Shiraishi got dressed, quickly, inbetween making himself a bit of curry for lunch. 

The house was clean and if he shut his eyes, he could still hear his sister’s whining pout, but it was little more than a side-note. Shiraishi felt more pre-occupied with the bombshell that the Devil had dropped upon him, the night before, with those intense, blue eyes, poring down into Shiraishi’s core, asking him questions he didn’t really want to think about. It was probably bad to think that the Devil was very pretty, too, even after everything. 

He chuckled to himself, running a hand through his tousled hair. “This is ridiculous. You are ridiculous Shiraishi Kuranosuke.” But he had invited the Devil for dinner over again tonight. Like a little fool.

God help him, but he hadn’t been able to talk like this to anyone in weeks. This was the most normal he’d been in days. 

Lifting his jacket over his shoulders and tucking his phone into his pocket, Shiraishi headed out the door, only just remembering to lock it behind him. It was still warm today and Shiraishi exhaled, letting the grey roll over the edges of his closed-eye vision. There was nobody on the street and he hummed to himself softly, as he walked past the typically suburbia houses, stopping only to nod hello to the neighbours who called his name and cooed when he gave them a beautiful smile, as usual. Sometimes, he considered investing in proper headphones and walking around town with those in to avoid any unnecessary conversation, but he wasn’t that much of a music person, not like Kenya and Zaizen, who might as well have been plugged into the radio for life-energy. 

…besides, he was supposed to be trying to make himself more social, not less. Back to normal, not further into his self-imposed isolation. Or was he?

Shiraishi ruffled his hair, with frustration as he drew up to the store. He didn’t know what the Devil had been implying. He didn’t know whether Yukimura meant to turn him evil, or whether he was just trying to bring Shiraishi out of his shell. Was he overthinking this, or not thinking enough? He was worried and scared, and he didn’t know what to do. 

“Kuranosuke.” calls Watanabe-san, from upstairs, hair still in curlers, but with a wide smile on her wizened features. “Let me open the door for you.”

Shiraishi leant back on his toes, and glanced over the store’s old paintjob, white flakes slowly peeling off the edges of the wood that touched the ground or the sagging awnings. in all honesty, it needed a touch-up sometime soon, but the old lady had so many things to spend money on to cater for this town, she didn’t need to worry about a paintjob too, and the expense of that. Maybe he could cover it up with some spare bits of cloth from home, to make it look better. 

The old door rattled as Watanabe-san opened it, the doorbell ringing almost angrily as she finally manages to push the rusty hinge open. “Oh dear,” she murmured, as Shiraishi dropped his jacket behind the counter, “Tarou was going to fix it this weekend, but he had to go somewhere else…” 

“Don’t worry, Watanabe-san,” Shiraishi said, with a warm smile. “I’ll fix it up once I finish restocking the shelves. The delivery already came in?”

“5am, as per usual, dearie.” she said, patting his arms, before bustling back upstairs, to remove her curlers and get more presentable, no doubt. They did open in less than an hour.

Shiraishi headed outside, trainers scuffing against the clean but worn floors, as he stepped outside into the weed-infested back lot. The shipments were small and manageable, once a weekly things for a small grocery and other essential supplies shop. If anyone wanted anything too specific, they either ordered ahead of time with Watanabe-san or headed off to the larger town about half an hour away. Shiraishi still remembered the time he’d had to awkwardly carry a huge sofa to someone else’s house with Watanabe Tarou, the old lady’s son, currently an awkward college student in Osaka University, because of these custom orders. Still, it wasn’t a bad life. 

Putting his back into it, Shiraishi slowly started unpacking the boxes, with practised ease, and sorting them into various sections, rushing inside with the boxes, if they contained freezer goods which would need to be chilled as soon as possible. He passed Watanabe-san frequently and a few older clients, out early in the morning, who waved to him, with admiring looks over his lean muscles and slightly sweaty hair. He knew he was attractive, but he had things to do, so offered them little more than a thin smile, and a nod of acknowledgement, to not seem impolite but still discourage any conversation. Not that he had anything against townyard gossip, but today especially, he had more on his mind. 

He couldn’t help but think about the two choices that the Devil had essentially told him his future held. Either he stayed here, in this town, in the house of his childhood, ghostly memories in every corner and working at this shop, until he married some nice country girl and used his parents’ trust fund to build a large garden and have three children. the perfectly peaceful life,a nd entirely wasteful of everything that had gained him so much attention as a child. 

Or he followed the Devil’s advice and returned to the city, picked up his career in law once more to become a hot-shot lawyer, more tempered and sad than before, but eventually found someone who understood his work limitations, and married them, to be a slightly more distant husband and father, but fulfilling his talents, becoming the perfect citizen again. 

Discarding the fact that the _Devil_ had suggested this, Shiraishi wasn’t sure how he felt about becoming the perfect friend, perfect lawyer, perfect student again. It had rarely been an act, his throwing himself into every activity until he excelled, but still, the way that Yukimura had worded it felt painful, like he was battling himself. Was perfect something good? Everybody else had thought so, even his closest friends like Chitose and Fuji, had always been supportive of perfect tennis and perfect grades, even when he’d told them over and over again that perfect was boring and they were _far_ better.

Yet. Yet despite that, he’d never broken the perfect mould. Not even once, not until now. He was comfortable with it, if his boasting of it to the Devil was any indication. But was he _truly_ happy with it, or just used to it? His head hurt, his heart hurt, but yet the small, beautiful smile across the pink lips of Yukimura and the almost sincere sadness at the death of his parents lingered in his mind, confusing everything about his preconceived notions. 

“Kuranosuke?” asked Watanabe-san, tapping his shoulder, startling Shriaishi. He jumped backwards, only just managing to stop himself and the shelf behind him from collapsing, and he paused for a moment, letting his beating heart calm down a little. She looked surprised and more than a little concerned. “Are you quite alright? You didn’t take your break, even though it’s almost 10 already?” 

Shiraishi’s eyes flickered to the old grandfather clock, ticking loudly at the edge of the counter, next to the ancient monster of the till. So it was. He hadn’t even noticed. But that would worry her, so he smiled, sheepishly. “I wanted to finish this shipment up, I’ll take my break now though.” 

Grabbing a coconut water from the fridge, he took a seat in the chair next to the counter, and wiped his sweat from his forehead, noticing how weary he felt. It was easy to forget sometimes when his mind was elsewhere. Watanabe-san followed him, slowly, grabbing a momiji tempura from the small airtight container from home, her eyes resting on his prone form. He met her gaze quizzically, and she smiled, softly. “If you need somebody to talk to, I am right here. I haven’t seen you frown that much since you were this high and had lost your ball.” She indicated a height close to her shoulders, and chuckled, softly. 

Shiraishi offered a weak smile, unable to quite pump as much effort into looking normal. “I just…someone said something that’s confused me a little.” he said, quietly. “It feels like it should be good advice, but it’s coming from someone who’s evil.” 

Watanabe-san hummed, gently, finishing her bite and Shiraishi waited, taking slow careful sips of the coconut water. Like most old people, she took her time about things, to find the ideal way to say it or phrase it, and even if they were silent for a long time, it was obvious that she wished to speak. So Shiraishi held his tongue and waited for her to finish her mouthful of food and her thoughts. There were few other people his age who could do this, but Shiraishi had always felt a little discordant, a little out of sorts with the rest of his peers, too responsible for his own good, at times. 

“One thing I have noted, over my many, many years of existence, is that there is never truly someone evil.” she said, softly, “That sort of absolute mentality has never been Japan’s and never will be Japan’s, it is a disease brought here from westernization, and for all of the amenities we have received in return, it is this flawed thinking we must reject the most. Nobody is truly evil or truly god, not even the gods. Susano-o rid our world of the Yamato-no-Orochi, yet wrecked havoc among his sister’s realm. The ever selfless Amaterasu-okami who sustained life to the planet went into hiding and nearly killed us because of a minor accident. This is the way the world is; nobody is always good, and yet nobody is always bad.”

Shiraishi frowned; how did he explain to her that he was dealing with the literal representation of western evil without sounding like he had gone entirely crazy? She saw the look on his face, and her wispy strands of her hair shook as she leant forward. “ _Aish_ , you are doubting me. Real people are even more nuanced than the old gods, let us think about even the men they call the most evil in the West. That Hitler they curse so much, like the Emperor here. The man spearheaded the death of so many, but he loved children, flirted with women and saved his country from the coldest of winters.”

“That doesn’t make his actions any less devastating.” Shiraishi murmured, speaking up. “Good people can take bad decisions.” 

“They were not considered bad until later.” said Watanabe-san, firmly, “They didn’t call him a terrorist and a madman in his country when he was giving them jobs. Nor even when they killed those who were not ‘right’ because he helped those who were. There were those who doubted him, those who fled, but he was not evil until later. All actions can be considered good at a point, or bad, later, or even vice versa. It is all about the society that you live in, my boy.”

“But then...” Shiraishi murmured, leaning forward himself now, coconut water forgotten, “How can you ever be sure of doing something right?”

She smiled, and patted his hand, gently. “What if I told you that I had robbed a bank at gunpoint and stole the life investments of hundreds of people? You would be horrified, no? Now I tell you the same thing, but I tell you that my son, my wonderful Tarou, is dying and nobody would give me the money to buy him the medicine to save his life? You think better of me in the second reason. It is whether you meant to cause hurt, or whether you meant to save those you love, that matters. Who knows what the future will label you? But if you never take the action, you will never know whether they will label it good or bad.”

“You fail 100% of shots you don’t take.” Shiraishi murmured, remembering Osamu-sensei, slumped lazily over the chair and how he’d murmured those same words to his coach after seeing the application for a more prestigious school that Osamu-sensei had immediately rejected, fingers curled around the amber glass.

“Somebody else has already told you that?” she asked, warmly. Shiraishi nodded, dumbly, draining the coconut, feeling lighter and slightly disbelieving. “Ah, they’re wise then. You should listen to them more. And this person, whatever their advice is, you have to evaluate whether it makes sense yourself, not thinking about whether they are evil or not. You’re a dutiful boy, you have your heart in the right place. I have faith in you.” 

Shiraishi felt his eyes sting suddenly, at the sudden display of affection and trust. She always called him dearie and gave him food when she thought he was working too hard, but she’d never put it like this. “Thank you.” he said, bowing lowly to hide the beginnings of touched tears. “I’ll go and finish the job now.”

She only started to hum, weighing another piece of tempura in her hands, as Shiraishi turned around to the back of the store. Before he could stop himself, he grabbed a few fresh vegetables, three fresh tomatoes, a lot of milk and a bottle of wine, and dropped it by his jacket, behind the counter. Her eyes sharpened, but she said nothing as Shiraishi disappeared back into supplies lot, rolling his sleeves up for a day of hard work. 

x

He was still a little confused at the end of the day, slowly stirring the vegetables in his pot, and watching the spaghetti simmer on the burner next to him, expertly. He wasn’t sure of his actions yet, but he knew for sure that he couldn’t just wallow here. If he was going to establish himself here, he was going to do it properly. And if he was going back to the city, he would do it properly.

Not this uncertainty, not for much longer. But, he still had to decide yet, and neither decision seemed more appealing than the other. With a slight hum, Shiraishi turned off the timer and mixed the dish together, his ears peeled for the telltale sound of the ambient noise around him disappearing. There was nothing yet, so he didn’t hesitate to hum softly to himself, as he carefully poured enough into two bowls, placed a few springs of coriander to the top of the spaghetti, and placed them down against the table to cool. 

Reaching into his cabinets for the cutlery and the wine-opener, he was indeed surprised when he turned around and Yukimura was seated at the table already, wide-brimmed hat hanging against the edge of one of the unused chairs and black trench-coat slowly coming off, to reveal a very well-fitted black shirt, and a previously hidden red waistcoat, so dark, it was almost black itself, but covered in slight embroidery, which caught the lights in his room to create a shimmering effect, almost otherworldly in appearance. “It smells good,” Yukimura said, easily, seemingly unfazed by Shiraishi’s complete loss for words. 

Swallowing heavily, Shiraishi placed the forks down against the table and laid the cork-opener on top of the bottle. “How did you get in here?” he asked, weakly. 

“Your door was unlocked. And your invitation applies until you rescind it.” Yukimura said, easily, blue eyes sliding up to Shiraishi, asking mischievously whether Shiraishi had a problem with that, with just one twitch of his plump lips. 

“No silence this time?” asked Shiraishi and Yukimura chuckled, low and deep.

“I thought that would ruin the romantic atmosphere.” he answered, quick and easy with his responses. “People find it awkward, surprisingly.” 

“I can’t imagine how.” Shiraishi replied, as greasily as he could, smirking slightly at Yukimura raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Wine now, or later?

“Later,” said Yukimura, decisively, leaning forward to tip his chin forward and bare his long, rather inviting neck, only half-hidden by the loose button-up shirt. Shiraishi looked for only a moment, but it was enough. Taking the seat next to Yukimura, he picked up his fork and started to eat, slowly, smiling easily at the easy flavour filling his mouth, rich and aromatic. Cooking had never been something that Shiraishi particularly valued as something beyond an essential lifeskill, like ironing or cleaning, but he wasn’t half bad at it, especially on more western dishes. He was good at making things healthier than were supposed to be, and still somewhat tasty. 

There was an easy silence between them, as Yukimura twirled his fork in the food, clearly mulling over the taste, a smile on his face. “It’s good.” he said, softly, “Nice flavour.”

“You’ve probably had better.” demurred Shiraishi and Yukimura nodded.

“I have.” he said, simply, “But there aren’t many people who have invited me in. It has mostly been the other way around.”

“I would think more people would dance around bad decisions willingly.” said Shiraishi, carefully, resting his fork against the side of the bowl.

There was a wry smirk on Yukimura’s face, as he looked upwards. “Well, people prefer smoking, or drugs or alcohol to waste their bad decisions on. It seems safer to them. It probably is, there’s something very visceral about inviting the incarnation of western evil to your dinner table.” His eyes crinkled a little with amusement at that, and Shiraishi took the jab for what it was. He’d been criticizing his own stupidity all morning, after all. 

“There’s a quote by Mark Twain, that the person who needs the most people to pray for him is the Devil, yet nobody does that. I suppose the Devil is one of the people who would need a nice romantic dinner every now and then.” Shiraishi murmured and this made Yukimura laugh, tilting his head back with amusement.

“So. You really are attempting to turn me into something good.” he said, with an amused giggle. It was endearingly human, and only served to further Shiraishi’s motivation to make it happen more often. “It’s pretty pointless, you know.”

“As far as I’ve seen,” Shiraishi said, carefully, "You’re the incarnation of chaos and destruction. Not evil. You haven’t said anything that isn’t common sense.” 

Yukimura’s eyes were boring into him again, like a vicious drill, into the centre of his soul. Yet he couldn’t look away, didn’t want to look away. He swallowed eavily and blinked, finally, as Yukimura’s lips tugged up into a slightly more cautious smile, one very carefully chosen, unlike the frank laughter just moments ago. “Shiraishi Kuranosuke. The man who tries to turn the Devil into an angel. You truly are bizarre.”

“Thank you.” Shiraishi said, with a light nod, feeling a small pit in his stomach at those words, purred out, without quite knowing why. The retort was almost automatic, and he was really glad for the relative ease in making automatic conversations and responses, that keeping an eye on a boisterous team had allowed him to foster. 

“Tell me about yourself, Shiraishi.” said Yukimura, finally. That was _not_ what Shiraishi had been expecting him to say next. 

“Why? You already know anyway.” Shiraishi said, lifting one eyebrow, feeling more than slightly confused. 

“It’s one thing to read it from a book. It’s another to be able to watch you speak about yourself. It speaks volumes about your character, you know, your ability to self-evaluate what’s important to you.” Yukimura retorted, swallowing his mouthful easily. 

Well, that was a challenge if he’s ever seen one. Still, it was a challenge that Shiraishi was eager to accept. How to present himself in an interesting way/. None of his main life events, that was for sure. Besides, he wasn’t most proud of those, not proud of the trophies, not proud of the medals, or becoming captain of several teams. he was sort of proud of getting into the University of Osaka with a full scholarship, but that wasn’t much of a story anyway. No, the interesting stories he had, almost always related to other people. 

“I really hate bandages.” said Shiraishi after a while, and Yukimura raised an eyebrow, leaning forward, clearly expecting a good story. Shiraishi cleared his throat and uncorked the wine slowly, as he phrased out his thoughts, slowly. “I spent my entire life helping other people out when they got into trouble. My sister was wonderful and beautiful, but as a kid, she got into accidents really easily, so I used to have to carry around medical stuff for her, otherwise she would cry, these huge crocodile tears, that wouldn’t stop until I gave her a bandage and kissed her booboo better.” Shiraishi made large pouty lips and smacked them together obnoxiously, in an imitation of himself as a child. Yukimura laughed, easily, holding out his glass for the wine, and Shiraishi poured, obligingly. 

“And then my first real friend was called Oshitari Kenya. A great guy, still one of my closest friends, but he was a doctor’s son and a runner. So, I used to have to carry around bandages for him too, for when he’d collide into things because he was going too fast. But then his house had plenty of bandages too, and this on time, we were playing dress up in his parent’s room and he and his devil cousin started winding bandages around me until I almost suffocated and fell down the stairs trying to walk my way out of it. That wasn’t fun.” Yukimura’s eyes crinkled easily around the edges, and he laughed into his hands, loud and clear, clearly quite amused by Shiraishi’s struggles. 

“You’re so mean, I was traumatized for life.” Shiraishi said, sniffing indignantly, but was unable to keep it up as Yukimura had to hold the table for support, for fear of falling over from laughter. “No, it gets worse. So then I went to middle school, and I was a tennis prodigy, so my lazy coach gives me this huge gold bar to wear over my arm – no kidding, it was literally a solid ingot melted into a gauntlet– and to hide the fact that I was practically a walking robbery opportunity, he made me cover it in bandages every single fucking day. I had to retie them three times a day to make sure they didn’t fall off, and if they got destroyed or came too loose, I was fucked over. I grew to hate bandages viscerally.”

Yukimura had stopped laughing, almost expectant of the change in the tone, and Shiraishi looked away. “And then, my coach wanders in, half drunk, practically dead one day, because he was like that one drunk uncle, and I ended up being like some shitty girlfriend for him or something, with how often I bandaged him up and ordered him to stop being a fuck-up or I’d lock up his alcohol or report him to the school or _something_. But he walked in one day, blood everywhere. He’d been hit by a car, but didn’t have the money to go to hospital so he comes to me instead, and I have to do his stitches and wrap him up in bandages, or the phone with Kenya until he arrived, panicking. I never wore the gauntlet or those bandages again.” He held out his left arm to Yukimura, forever paler than his right and slightly crooked from the press of the gauntlet against his bones. 

“The perfect everything.” murmured Yukimura, slender fingers running over the edge of Shiraishi’s wrist, sending shivers down Shiraishi’s spine, furthering that drop in his stomach, that made him feel inexplicably guilty and happy, at the same time. “Did you ever resent it?”

Shiraishi met Yukimura’s gaze, cool, cutting but understanding, despite it all. “Sometimes.” Shiraishi said, his mouth a little dry. “But somebody had to be. Boring or not, someone had to be perfect and get the job done.”

“And so you did it. And have been doing it ever since, and sometimes even enjoy it?” Yukimura guessed, fingers tapping slightly against Shiraishi’s wrist, gaze focused on the curve of Shiraishi’s underarm. 

“I don’t know whether I enjoy it because I’d go crazy if I didn’t, or whether I truly enjoy it.” whispered Shiraishi, words he’d never spoken aloud to anybody, but couldn’t help but speak to the Devil, who’d been nothing but open and listening. He swallowed heavily and licked his lips, feeling the uncomfortable sensation of his body speeding up, as if in danger. 

As if hearing his panicked thoughts, Yukimura looked up again, and smiled, gently. He lifted his finger up to his lips and smiled. “It’s alright to say it, you know. Everybody needs somebody to talk to.”

“Most people go to a therapist.” Shiraishi joked, with a slight look of amusement. It was still unable to cut past the slight pounding in his chest at having said something so intimate to himself, out loud. 

“I’m probably more effective than therapists. Less expensive too.” Yukimura countered, smirk playing on the edge of his pink lips, curved and and filled with tangled-up meanings that Shiraishi should have been trying to unravel. 

“Mmm, all I have to do is pay you with a meal, not everyone is so easily sated.” Shiraishi agreed. “Though I feel like at some point, you should be the one taking me out.”

Yukimura raised an eyebrow, leaning back in his chair, waistcoat curving around his spine beautifully. “Oh, really now?” he asked, coolly and there was something brittle there, in the way he held himself, and Shiraishi had been planning to respond with something flirty, that would make the Devil laugh, but instead, the brush of Yukimura’s hair against the inner curve of his cheek, distracted him, leaving him only with hollow words, rolling off the end of his tongue like a curse.

“Everyone needs someone to talk to. Even the Devil. And I rather enjoy these dates.”

Yukimura laughed, shortly. “Even after the existential crises I leave you with in the aftermath?”

“Isn’t that the fun part?” countered Shiraishi, almost unable to breathe past the sudden pulsing of blood in his ears. Everything about Yukimura from the way his knuckles suddenly looked paler, to the way he’d suddenly straightened upwards, to the brittle, dangerous look in his dark eyes, screamed danger, and Shiraishi’s entire body wanted to run, to flee, to escape this danger, no matter how foolish that would be. It took all of his calm to move his hands into his lap, to sit on them so they would stop shaking. 

“ _Fun_ , he says, looking like he’d rather be anywhere other than where he’s currently sitting.” Yukimura muttered, running a hand through his hair, tousling the black curls to the point where he looked completely debauched. With a long sigh, his gaze looked up to Shiraishi’s again, and he smiled, disarming and sweet. “I’ve never met anyone quite like you. And I’ve existed ever since humans gained the ability to be sentient.”

“Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?” asked Shiraishi, feeling the overwhelming weight of fear and sadness, against his body loosen just a little. The smile sent other goosebumps in other places, and Shiraishi wasn’t much to keen to have those, either, but it was better than fear. This would be a another thing to carefully untangle tomorrow, during work, but for now, he pushed it all down, away. 

“I’m not sure yet.” Yukimura murmured, draining his glass of wine, in one tilt of his head. His adam’s apple bobbed and he rose again, carefully languid. “As much as I would like to stay, I’m afraid I have business elsewhere.”

“Tomorrow, then?” asked Shiraishi, carefully, hopelessly, _pathetically_. 

“Tomorrow.” confirmed Yukimura, eyes crinkling. “Good night Shiraishi. Thank you for the dinner and the story.” Shiraishi blinked, and Yukimura had vanished, as if he’d never even been there. The dishes were stacked neatly in the sink and there was a small box of the leftover pasta on the kitchen counter. Yet, on the corner of one of his chairs, remained Yukimura’s black-brimmed hat, holding an unknown weight. Shiraishi didn’t dare to touch it, retreating upstairs quickly.


	4. Chapter 4

That night, Shiraishi didn’t dream of his sister and the accident. He supposed that he should have been thankful for that, but the alternative dream was almost more disturbing, wandering through a corn field, a perfectly blue sky above him. It was completely blissful and calm, but the silence was the same foreboding blanketing silence that Shiraishi was starting to both dread and love. There was not a single other person around him, even as Shiraishi wandered for what seemed like hours, not tiring or even flagging, but he just felt on edge, as if being watched, or missing something very important. The sun beat down hot against his back, just like in Osaka, but the air was clear and crisp, which was quite unlike his hometown. 

Besides, they didn’t grow corn here. That was a very western food, which meant that he wasn’t dreaming of Japan? That was weird, he’d only ever been to Korea and Japan in his life. This was new, his imagination just making up something without reference from his memories. Had he watched a movie recently about corn fields? He couldn’t remember. 

Just then, he stumbled upon a path, out of the corn-field, marked by footsteps and Shiraishi quickly followed it, eager to get out of the endless stalks of corn and the endless monotony. His breath was all that he could hear and Shiraishi felt a small tingle creep up his spine as the corn thinned and he could finally see a tiny farmhouse up ahead, with a tractor haphazardly parked against a ditch at the side. Shiraishi’s feet sped up, despite himself, coming up to the house with more speed.

The paint was peeling, the windows were boarded up and the boards of the verandah outside looked like the wood would collapse with any weight applied to them. In other words, this looked like just the sort of thing you saw in horror films. Still, Shiraishi mused, this was just a dream, it wasn’t like he could actually get hurt. 

He stepped up, hesitantly. Despite the way it looked, the wood didn’t even creak under his feet, as he stepped forward to press his hand against the rusty door handle. Just as he did, there was loud, terrified scream from inside, sounding a bit like a little girl. Shiraishi’s eyes widened and he started to pull at the door knob with more force. Still, it was locked and wasn’t budging. The scream came again, and Shiraishi gave in, bashing his shoulder against the door, trying to get the old wood to splinter in, so he could get in. “ _SHUT UP, BITCH!_ ” shouted a deep voice from inside in English. Shiraishi wasn’t very good at English, but he didn’t need to be, to understand exactly what was probably happening inside. 

Finally, the wood shuddered and caved in, allowing Shiraishi to pry away splinters of the wood from the door, to see the horrifying but expected scene of a large man, bringing his hand against a crying girl. Shiraishi’s face darkened and he made to get in and beat that man down to his size, but there was a slender hand against his shoulder and a whispered, “No.”

Shiraishi turned around, to see a tall man, with long-straight blonde hair, light freckles against his skin and warm brown eyes. He wore plaid and denim, but his skin was the same white of Yukimura’s skin, white like milk. If that wasn’t enough indication, the grass around them was wilting, slowly. “Wha–?”

“Wait for it.” Yukimura said, instead, hand tightening on Shiraishi’s shoulder as the little girl sobbed, curled up in a ball to reduce the surface area that was being hit. As the man staggered around (drunk, Shiraishi could see the tinges of red on his face, blotchy splotches from too much drink at the wrong times), the girl’s eyes narrowed, staring the almost empty glass bottle rolling on the floor. Shiraishi realized what the girl was about to do, just as she grabbed the bottle.

“No–!” he said, surging forward, but Yukimura’s hand was still on his shoulder, and Yukimura tugged, with more strength than Shiraishi had been expecting. The girl reached forward, smashed the bottle against the man, before stabbing the shards into the man, mindlessly, screaming incoherent insults at him. There was vomit everywhere, the larger man coughing it up, the acrid smell of piss and intestines spilling across the rotting wood, but more than anything, the spray and stench of blood was unbelievable. Shiraishi exhaled, shakily as the girl finally stopped and sunk down to her knees, realizing the magnitude of what she’d done. 

Yukimura’s hand on his shoulder dropped away and Shiraishi ran forward to the girl, to yank here away from the dead body and hug her. “ _Be alright._ ” he stammered in broken english, as he smoothed her hair down and wiped away the streaks of dirty tears and blood from her face with his sleeve, “ _Breathe, self-defence, no one will jail you. It’s okay._ ” 

The girl was sobbing too hard to say anything, but she clutched tightly to him in a hug and Shiraishi rubbed her back, reassuringly. Still, he couldn’t get away from the elephant in the room. Yukimura was leant over the man’s body, look of slight annoyance on his face at the blood seeping into his shoes. “Done?”

“Somebody’s coming for her, right?” asked Shiraishi, smoothing down her hair carefully, as she started shaking. 

“It’s at least three miles to the nearest police station. So no.” Yukimura said, pushing away his blond hair from his face. 

“Then I’m not done.” Shiraishi said, lifting up the girl, carefully, like she was his own sister. She didn’t protest it, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. There was a small bed in the room behind this one, and Shiraishi laid her down against the bed, and curled up at her side, until the tears dried up and she fell asleep. Carefully extracting himself from her tight grip, Shiraishi noticed all of the blood all over his body and clothes and pulled a face, but walked out to meet Yukimura anyway, who was waiting on the porch, playing with a lighter absently, an empty box of something at his feet. There was an acrid smell in the air and Shiraishi crinkled his nose. 

“You’re too kind.” murmured Yukimura, looking up. “In the morning, she will have forgotten about you and the incident, and she will come in to see the blood and his body and will feel even worse.” 

“You’re too callous. She’s a tiny child who just killed her abuser, perhaps her father. She needed comfort, Yukimura.” said Shiraishi, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Not Yukimura here. Thomas Yukelson.” said Yukimura, looking up with a cool glance, his brown eyes staring into Shiraishi’s soul, with the same depth that they always had. This was weird, he looked so different, yet everything was the same about how he possessed himself and how he moved. It was unsettling, to the point where Shraishi felt goosebumps on his skin. He didn’t much like this. 

“You…possess someone’s body in each country?” asked Shiraishi, feeling a little confused now, admittedly. His fingers curled up into a loose fist at his sides.

“No.” Yukimura answered, straightening up, his figure long and lanky. Slowly, he morphed into the same man that Shiraishi entertained at his table, and then there was a fast whirlwind of different people in front of Shiraishi’s eyes, until Yukimura settled on the form of Shiraishi Yukari, smiling and cute. 

“Stop that.” Shiraishi chided, heart pounding in his throat. No. Yukimura was Yukimura, not his sister; he wasn’t supposed to feel that mixture of thrill and fear that overcame him, every time he was in Yukimura’s presence, by the sight of his sister. His sister was warmth and sunshine and bratty pouts, not this frisson down his spine. “What were you doing here?”

“Claiming the soul of an evil man for Hell, where he’ll rot forever.” Yukimura said, casually, hands in his pockets as he shifted back into the form of the man, Thomas Yukelson, that he had taken before. “My job. The question is: what are you doing here?”

Shiraishi’s brows furrowed as he looked down at his hands. “I’m…dreaming, right? So what? Is this…real?”

Yukimura smirked, thin, pale lips pulling up into a smirk. It looked very different to the smirk that Shiraishi was used to and he didn’t much like it. “As real as you want it to be, I suppose.” he said, coolly, “I find it interesting how you are drawn to me even in your sleep though…very interesting.”

“You mean…you didn’t want me here.” Shiraishi said, feeling his blood chill. Why was he dreaming this? He didn’t particularly want to be here, dreaming of this Yukimura, who wouldn’t comfort little girls after they’d just stabbed their abuser and freed themselves from their situation. “Then why am I here?”

Yukimura pulled a face, that looked very human as he fished out his lighter again, flicking it open. “Some implicit message was to be conveyed or something? God likes to fuck with me like that.” he shrugged, slightly, “It’s probably a good time for you to wake up, in any case.” And he threw the lighter behind him, onto the balcony, where the wood immediately caught flame, something that really shouldn’t have happene–

Shiraishi woke up with a start. For a moment, he panted to himself, trying to recover from how weird the dream had been. Then, he realized in horror what Yukimura had done. “No!” he shouted, loudly, eyes widening. The girl had still been inside the building!

Had that been real? Had that been real? Yukimura had said the police wouldn’t arrive for a long time, but surely the burning would attract them quicker? Shiraishi bit his lip and then reached for his phone, fingers shaking in his haste to type. He searched world news, looked for “corn field”, “fire”, “little girl”, and “arson” as search terms. Nothing particularly recent popped up, so Shiraishi set his phone to give him notifications if anything matching those keywords was submitted, before he tossed the phone aside, lump heavy in his throat. Real or not, he was unsettled, to his very bones. It was perhaps the first time he’d seen Yukimura actually act like the devil, instead of someone who was just somewhat otherwordly. 

Yet… the words that Yukimura murmured remained in his head. _Claiming the soul of an evil man to Hell, where he’ll rot forever._ That sounded like something that people wanted, it was what jail was meant to be like, anyway. So why was his heart palpitating like this, a cold sweat all over his skin? Shiraishi dropped his head into his palms, rubbing at the edges of his eyes. He felt gross, unsettled and nervous. 

He almost wanted to talk to Yukimura again, ask him what that had been on about, what the hell was going on, but he realized with a start that today was Saturday, and he had the morning off, in exchange for staying later at work to help out with the shop while Watanabe-san when for shogi night with her friends. It looked like he wouldn’t be able to catch Yukimura today. And as much as Shiraishi knew that he wanted a conversation, every part of his primal body felt relief at this realization. 

Pulling himself out of his rough tangle of his bed sheet covers, Shiraishi walked into the bathroom and pulled a face at his reflection. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all, bags under his eyes, and newly-made bed-head hair, combining with a grumpy expression to create a general disheveled nature: and not in the casual way that so suited Kenya. He tugged at the ends of his strands, musing that they were getting a bit too long, as well. “This is ridiculous.” he muttered to himself, splashing his face with water and rubbing with a towel thoroughly, to try and feel less like a zombie and more like a human being. This resulted in his skin turning faintly red, as if after a long run around campus, urged on by Kenya, who wouldn’t even look winded. 

Kenya. Shiraishi pulled a face in the mirror again. He’d been thinking of his friends more often in this week than he had for the past seven months. It was a bizarre sensation, like having the cork pop out, letting out the emotions that he’d bottled down. He missed his friends, with the same sort of intensity he missed his family…which was stupid, because they were only about a hundred miles away, in the heart of Osaka. Before Shiraishi could stop himself with guilt, or anger, he picked up his phone again, switched to the dial-pad screen, and typed in Kenya’s number from memory.

It rang only once before Kenya picked it up, his usual habit when it came to this sort of thing. “Hello, Oshitari Kenya, speaking?” said Kenya, into the line, with rapid words tumbling over each other like Shiraishi remembered and he couldn’t help but smile, softly. 

“Hello? I swear, Yuushi, if this is you butt-calling me while getting laid _again_ , I’m going to come over there and _murder_ you, I was goddamn _sleeping_!” Shiraishi started, realizing he’d waited too long, but couldn’t help but laugh at Kenya’s annoyed tone. That sounded like something the devil cousin would do, perhaps on purpose, just to spite Kenya a little. 

“Kura?” asked Kenya, his voice hushed. “Oh my god, is that really you? It is, the caller ID says…Fuck Kura, is everything okay? I haven’t heard from you in ages? Nothing’s gone wrong, right? You’re not in like hospital or jail or something, are you?” asked Kenya, voice getting increasingly louder and high-pitched.

“No, no.” assured Shiraishi, quickly, cutting over his next guess, walking out of the bathroom to flop on top of his bed. “Nothing like that. I’m just….I needed to hear your voice. That’s all.” 

Kenya was silent for a moment, before there was a soft murmur of assent. “I can do that. Man, I’ve missed you, you know? Everyone’s missed you.” Shiraishi hummed in sad assent, but Kura, sensing Shiraishi’s mood, just launched straight into an account of a party that Shiraishi had missed, where the night had ended with a pool full of jello, three naked girls riding a flamingo and the police, understandably arresting a lot of people for disrupting the peace, Kenya only escaping by sheer speed. 

Kenya didn’t pause, launching into more dramatic retellings of stories or funny situations he’d missed, rants about his teachers and the lessons, and things about his annoying new roommate (”who isn’t you, come back already, god, I’ll even put up with your ass-o-clock yoga”). Shiraishi was grateful that all he had to do was make comforting or commiserating noises at the right points and laugh, because he was too overwhelmed by hearing Kenya’s voice and the sheer normality of the college year he was missing. Kenya didn’t say a word about what Shiraishi should have been doing, didn’t mention Shiraishi’s parents or even their old friends, focusing solely on topics that were safe for both of them, until Shiraishi noticed the number on the phone said they’d been on call for almost 90 minutes. 

Taking his chance when Kenya stopped to breathe, Shiraishi coughed. “Kenya, I’m not taking you from anything, am I?” he asked.

Kenya hummed, “Well, I’ve got class in like an hour, but honestly, not really. Just sleep, man, and well, I can sleep any time. I haven’t heard your voice in seven fucking months.”

Shiraishi swallowed heavily and leant back against the headboard, the hard knobs digging into his spine, painfully. “I–I’m sorry, Kenya. It’s….it’s just been really hard. I didn’t…I wasn’t even really able to talk properly until three months ago. I still don’t think I’m ready for anything. Going back to normal.”

“Nobody expects you to be normal, Kura. Not one goddamn person. We just…want to hear from you, yeah?” Kenya’s voice was tentative and slightly frustrated and Shiraishi didn’t know how to deal with it, except murmur his assent, lowly. He missed his friends, but here, even just hearing Kenya’s voice made him feel like an outsider and guilty and pitied and Shiraishi was so tired of feeling that. 

“Kura?” asked Kenya, after a moment of silence between them, “You are planning to come back, right?”

It took Shiraishi a bit too long to answer, he knew, but finally he nodded, grateful for Kenya not rushing him, like he would have before all of this. “Yeah. But I’ll probably wait until the end of the gap year. Three more months left and all. Try and get myself back in the happy place that can help me finish pre-law without needing to be assigned to a mental asylum.”

With a slight exhale, there was a sound of rustling over the other side, and Kenya’s feet against the floor. “We’re just worried about you, Kura. You know, some days I wondered whether you’d just ended it without telling anyone. But Chitose kept telling me some shit about how your cosmic energy was still around–I don’t think he believe half the shit he says, but he did believe you were alive. But man, even if you’re alive, you’re not in a good place.”

“Better place now than I have been for the last few months.” Shiraishi admitted, drumming his fingers against the table. “I met someone–don’t start.” He chided at Kenya’s excited breath, “But I don’t know, I’m confused about who they are and what they stand for. I keep thinking I have them figured out, and they change the rules on me, and he terrifies me.” Shiraishi belatedly realized that all of this sounded a lot like he was in love and internally sighed at what answer he was going to receive. Still, this was Kenya, he could hardly tell _Kenya_ that he was having a dilemma about the literal representation of evil flirting with him and nibbling on cookies and yet also burning innocent girls up in their houses.

“If he scares you, he’s probably not that good for you, just putting that out there.” Kenya said, with a more serious tone to his voice. “If you like someone, it ought to be rainbows and sunshine and shit, like Kin-chan and his threesome with Echizen and Ryuuzaki. I mean it’s weird, but they’re all happier with each other, right? I don’t think good people make you scared.”

Shiraishi hummed, softly, uncertain. “Alright then, Kenya,” he lied, softly, “I have to head off now. Got work and all.”

Kenya scoffed. “Typical Kura. You’re on a gap year to recover and you’re still working?”

“Got to have something to do, or I’d go mad. And well…I couldn’t stay cooped up in this house and just cry.” Shiraishi said, with a slight laugh to his tone. “You know me.”

“Yeah…yeah I do. Stay safe, and stay in touch Kura, okay?” demanded Kenya and Shiraishi agreed, before hanging up. The phone felt heavy in his palms, filled with promises Shiraishi wasn’t sure he could keep. Kenya’s voice had been soothing and unsettling, all at the same time, and Shiraishi knew that it meant, even if he wanted to follow the Devil’s advice and go back to his apartment in Osaka and go back to a typical college student’s life, it would not yet be possible. He was not ready for huge parties, and annoying teachers, or impossible-assignments that required hours in the library, surviving on only coffee. He wasn’t ready for that normality yet. It was painful to realize, but almost a relief too, and Shiraishi couldn’t help but bury his head in his hands.

At that moment, his phone buzzed, softly, and Shiraishi picked it up, to check the news notification, with bated breath. The keyword here was neither corn-field nor arson, but it did say that somewhere in Idaho, a young girl and an older man’s bones were found in the middle of a corn-field fire, an act considered to be suicide. 

Shiraishi’s blood ran cold. 

(X)

After showering in silent, quiet confusion, Shiraishi headed outside immediately. He needed calm, he needed strength, and the only place that could really give him that was his garden. Grabbing his gardening gloves, Shiraishi set about to go and water his plants, pottering around the place to make sure that they all got the proper amount of nutritional mix, and bug-repellent pellets. The easy glare of the sun against his back, as Shiraishi crouched dirt, knees buried in the dirt, was something that centred him, grounded all of his stray thoughts down into the plants, and the feel of the watering can in his hands. 

Usually, he liked to dissect his thoughts slowly, during these moments of peace, but now, he wanted to do anything except that. It was much easier to tune out everything about his internal turmoil and confusion by focusing on work. It was how he’d dealt with life since he’d gotten his job at the shop, and it had worked so far.

But god, he was so scared and confused and he was starting to be fed up of this. At some point, his body was going to give in, from his constant stress and panic, and make him numb to strange things or tragic things happening to him. And that thought scared Shiraishi even more than even the image of the little girl burning in that house, alone, with a match that Yukimura had tossed, and the police calling it a _suicide_. 

Shiraishi leant back on his heels, and exhaled, heavily, resisting the urge to ruffle his hair with his dirty gloves. For once, the plants weren’t soothing any of his exhaustion, and frustration. All he could think of was the face of the little girl, peaceful and still covered in blood, as he’d tucked her in, the little furrow in the edge of her brow, the bruises along the side of her neck, the slight cuts against her cheek and his parted lips, with exhaustion and vulnerability. Had she woken up to see the flames? Tried to escape, screaming and shouting as the smoke suffocated her? Or had she slept peacefully through the fire charring away her skin and hair, until there were nothing but blackened bones left? 

There was anxiety and fear bubbling up in the centre of Shiraishi’s chest, like hot water at the bottom of his electric kettle, hissing and filling Shiraishi up with an unknown, painful feeling, like he was about to explode and implode, at the same time. The longer he stared at the watering can, pouring out into the trough next to his petunias, the more it built up, and Shiraishi almost wanted to sit back and scream, let the sound fill up the quiet neighbourhood and echo off the low-hanging branches of the trees around him. All he could hear was his breath and that was almost suffocating, the air almost deserved to be cle– but even so, his neighbourhood was never _this_ quiet. Not unless….

Shiraishi turned around, to see the black figure, slowly walking down the pavement, as if he was strolling down the Riviera. In the distance, storm clouds started to roll in, lazily, as if they too didn’t quite feel up to this meeting. Yukimura walked straight up to him, feet neatly impacting against the concrete, his quiet confidence the same in this body as it had been in the body of the blond American. Shiraishi stared at Yukimura, his lips parted. “You’re early.”

“You have work at our usual time. So I adjusted.” Yukimura said, instead, inclining his head, politely. It was strange to see Yukimura without the black hat brimming his features, throwing them into shadow, but with a start, Shiraishi realized exactly where that hat currently resided and wondered whether Yukimura would want it back. He wasn’t quite sure why Yukimura was so attached to their daily meetings (and for that matter, he wasn’t quite sure why Yukimura knew his schedule well enough to just bypass Shiraishi’s attempt for a day’s breathing room) but surprised as he was to see Yukimura, no words could come. The unusual pressure had left his chest, as abruptly as it had started to build, and Shiraishi felt exhausted.

To avoid Yukimura’s gaze, Shiraishi turned back around to his plants,carefully spraying the bug-spray around his petunias, careful to make sure it didn’t reach the water. Of course, there was nothing he could do about the cross-contamination if it rained, but on dry days, at least, he could be a little kinder to the environment. Of course, with the girl’s face in his head, and Yukimura’s gaze heavy on him, it was not so easy to lose himself in the plants, especially as they slowly started to wilt, from the sheer overwhelming influence of Yukimura’s mere existence. He wanted to be annoyed, but really, it wasn’t something that Yukimura seemed to be control very well, his aura of destruction. It was not the thing that Shiraishi could hold him accountable for, even if Shiraishi wanted to turn around and shake Yukimura, ask him why he was killing Shiraishi’s precious flowers. 

“I’ve always loved flowers, how beautiful they look and how they attract everything in the world to look at them.” Yukimura said, voice soft as he squatted down, next to Shiraishi, his motion fluid. His fingers brushed over the edge of one of Shiraishi’s orchids, and the plant wilted and died, almost instantly. Yukimura’s beautiful face exhaled, regretfully and pulled his hand back. “I suppose it’s divine irony that they are the one thing that cannot survive in my presence. They will not grow in my land.” 

Shiraishi turned to watch Yukimura’s expressions, immensely surprised that Yukimura had started their discussion, instead of letting Shiraishi lead, as he always had, and he almost started from surprise. From here, with their intimate proximity and the midday sun illuminating the planes of Yukimura’s features, his skin was not nearly so white. There was almost a pink flush to his high cheekbones, and the small line of a green vein along the side of his neck, pulsing slowly. His hair, which had looked indigo black under the deep brim of the hat, now looked closer to an iridescent blue, and his eyes looked softer, even with their deep, immense depths. Everything about him looked more human, here where Shiraishi could trace out the planes of his skin, and the minute pores on his philtrum. 

“Many cultures of the afterlife speak about flowers, surprisingly.” Shiraishi said, softly, turning back to his flowers so he wouldn’t stare any longer, surprised by how even his voice sounded. “Greek culture of course, has the Fields of Elysium for the good and valiant, but even the mediocre, those who were neither good nor evil, were surrounded by grass, crops and poppies. Yomi has flowers and vines that creep around the entrance, ready to ensnare Izanagi for when he next ventures there, foolishly to join his wife once more. And Norse mythos has the Yggdrasil Tree, which holds and surrounds all stages of life, death included.”

Yukimura’ eyes flickered over to Shiraishi, a wistful smile over his features, one corner of his rounded lips tugging upwards. “You’ll notice that the evil have never been surrounded by flowers, no matter what mythos. They are a symbol of beauty and light.”

“But they are ephemeral. They will bloom and then they will die. That’s why we use them at funerals, to commemorate death.” Shiraishi argued, as the last of his flowers gave in and just wilted over. He wondered whether Watanabe-san would have any more seedlings for him, or whether he’d have to make a special order. 

“I am not Death.” Yukimura said, straightening upwards, to dust off his trousers, slender fingers almost awkward in the act. “I only take those who are evil and I spread more evil, in order to compensate for the loss this world’s balance has suffered.” 

Shiraishi nodded, quietly. “Was that why you killed the little girl as well?” he asked, the question slipping out of his lips, before he could stop himself. Yukimura turned to him, eyes almost unreadable, as he blinked, slowly. 

“Had you not been there, she would have killed her father and stared at his body, the murder she had committed. And she would have been overcome with pure guilt and set herself on fire, before the police could tell her anything about self-defence charges or cleaned her up.” Yukimura said, quietly, eyes boring into Shiraishi, like he was pulling apart Shiraishi’s innards with the sheer force. That pressure was building up again, but his mind was starting to clear as well, and he wasn’t liking how aware of everything Yukimura’s face emoted, the minute motions that Yukimura lacked, standing upright in perfect stillness. “Her soul was mine from the moment she plunged the first shard of glass into his gut.” 

“I could have stopped that too, had you let me.” Shiraishi said, and his voice was heavy and disapproving. “She would have never done it.” But just as he uttered the words, he felt how wrong they hung in the air, how the words twisted and writhed with their nature as a lie. He swallowed heavily, unable to look away from Yukimura’s patient gaze. Licking his lips, his shoulders hunched over. “But…that would have ruined the balance…”

Yukimura just nodded, long and slow, hair flopping forward into his eyes, sparing Shiraishi for a moment, so those eyes couldn’t stare into his soul and taste the sheer shame that filled him at the mere thought that he could change this. “How do you bear it?” asked Shiraishi, quietly, voice cracking on the last word. 

“I have lived since humans first learned how to use fire and tools.” Yukimura said, quietly, “The opposite of God’s love is the Devil’s apathy and I have had millennia to cultivate that.” 

Shiraishi wondered whether he too could do that, after years and years of watching people die, knowing he could do nothing to change their fates for fear of changing the balance of the world irrevocably. It felt unimaginable now, with Yukari’s face and the little nameless girl’s face in his mind, but he looked at Yukimura’s features, soft and almost human when looking upon how far away flowers were from his touch, but filled with little care for the dead. And he could almost see how the soft lips and beautiful cheeks, made for smiling, could turn into this. 

“…was it real? Was my interference real?” asked Shiraishi, quietly. “Could I have actually changed anything?”

Yukimura shrugged, languidly. “It’s as real as you let it be, Shiraishi Kuranosuke.” he said, and his words were heavy. The pressure was almost unbearable now, and Shiraishi couldn’t help it. He turned around and screamed, loudly, until everything felt less angry and painful and turmoiled inside his chest, until he was almost short of breath, voice ragged and hoarse. His shoulders shook, for just a moment, but slowly, Shiraishi turned on his heel and pushed back his hair. Yukimura still stood there, gaze down on Shiraishi’s garden, now black and almost non-existence from Yukimura’s presence, slightly regretful smile on his face. Yukimura’s shoulders had almost folded in and upon hearing the scream stop, Yukimura bowed, and made to turn away, without a word. 

Shiraishi watched him walk, for a couple of seconds, before sighing. _Good people don’t make you hurt._ Kenya’s words rung in his head. It would be better for his mental state, to let the Devil walk away from him, leave the implications that he perhaps didn’t have free will over his actions completely behind, and to back to his normal life. Much better than this panic, this clawing anxiety, the constant fear. Much better. 

…Well, perhaps he was more of a masochist than he’d previously imagined, because he stepped forward,, despite everything pointing for him to stay back. “I don’t have much food in my fridge, but I can make you some tea, Yukimura?” His voice was hoarse and not very loud, but still, it carried in the absolute silence. 

Yukimura’s steps stilled, careful against the pavement. There were a few moments of pause, where Shiraishi’s breath caught in his throat, painful and sore from his exertion. And then Yukimura turned on his heel, a distinctly bemused look on his face. “You are one of the most _bizarre_ humans I have ever had the misfortune of meeting.” he said, his voice soft, but there was almost a laugh in his voice. “Anybody else would have run away screaming.”

The smile that filled Shiraishi’s face, slow to extend and less exuberant than usual, was completely genuine. “If I recall, you were the one who chanced upon my garden, in the first place.” Then he shrugged. “Besides, I still haven’t converted you to the good side.”

“That’s not possible.” Yukimura, murmured, voice terse and not entirely happy, “Bala–”

“Then we’ll find another soul to replace you.” Shiraishi said, with an easy grin. “You’ve had this job for millennia, your turnover rate is disgustingly low. Maybe you need to get an apprentice. The devil’s apprentice? I mean, kids are _really_ desperate for paid internships at the moment…”

Yukimura’s laugh was loud and bright, and for one moment, drove away all thoughts of dead girls from Shiraishi’s mind. “Let’s get some tea, before you start trying to turn my job into a business venture.” Yukimura said, eyes twinkling again, with sudden mirth. It was infectious and Shiraishi felt entirely comfortable striding into his house, with Yukimura at his back, just for that afternoon.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to update this chapter again sometime this week, since it's plant trio week on tumblr! But if it's anything as long as this chapter, it might have to wait :') I have some interesting conversations and ideas planned, if I can ever put them down. Also, there was supposed to be a conversation about God here, but Yukimura was VERY eager to avoid the topic, so it'll happen next chapter. 
> 
> ALSO, I am incredibly awed and blown away and flattered by the readers of this fic. I think I may cry, because I have received not one, but _four_ beautiful pieces of fanart for this fic from stepko and rainy-face. I am absolutely astounded by your support and I hope you continue to love the rest of the chapters to come. 
> 
> [shiraishi and yukimura](http://rainy-face.tumblr.com/post/140354174291/arysthaeniru-look-lemme-tell-u-one-thing-this) by [rainy_face](http://rainy-face.tumblr.com/)  
> [some](http://rainy-face.tumblr.com/post/139050778666/arysthaeniru-here-are-some-of-the-sketches-i-told) very [amazing](http://rainy-face.tumblr.com/post/138829305526/arysthaeniru-guess-who-was-reading-ur-fanfic) yukimura sketches from rainy_face again.  
> [how do you feel about white?](http://stepsteponetwo.tumblr.com/post/137345213501) by [stepsteponetwo](http://www.stepsteponetwo.tumblr.com/) or [nfra3711](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nfra3711/pseuds/nfra3711) here on AO3!

Yesterday, after Shiraishi had invited Yukimura into his house, they had not spoke on anything important, almost as if both of them had been steering the conversation to topics that would be more agreeable for them. Shiraishi had spoken about his teammates, and how zany they had been, making sure to tell stories about the Shitenhouji Gate, which had made Yukimura almost topple over from laughter, and stories about various field trips they took, in the name of team bonding, that had almost eventually ended with Kintarou destroying something and it being uploaded to Zaizen’s blog. Yukimura had listened, thrown in snarky comments, and had mentioned that there had been a small Russian Prince, the very last of his kind who had been the same, always getting into trouble, even when he was trying to be good (which he admitted, with a sly smirk, was not very often). And then Shiraishi had had to get ready for work and that had been it. 

It almost felt bizarre, truth be told, and he wasn’t sure what to feel, as he rearranged the display for the new range of various trinkets for house decoration for the fifth time, dissatisfied with how the fairy lights strung up over the jewellery stand looked. 

“Come away from there Kuranosuke, if it’s not done by now, it never will be. Help me slice up these vegetables instead, my old fingers can’t do it.” Watanabe-san complained, and Shiraishi exhaled, momentarily, frowning down at the display. It still wasn’t right. 

He’d come back and fix it again when she wasn’t looking. 

“Just the onions, peas and beans?” asked Shiraishi, grabbing one of the spare aprons and pair of plastic gloves, tucked behind the counter, and coming up behind the old lady, who’d stepped away from the cutting board, where the vegetables were neatly laid out, in height order. She nodded, hopping up on her stool to munch on her snacks, massaging her shoulder, wearily. Grasping the handle of the knife, Shiraishi smoothly cut the onion up, letting his blade hit the glass surface of the board, with ease. Country music warbled through the radio, perched away behind the large (wobbly) shelf of gum, batteries and cigarettes, and as usual, the atmosphere was comfortable, easy. 

“Mmm.” she hummed, slapping his hand before he could take one of the peas and eat it. “Wash them if you want to eat some, child.” she said, disapprovingly, and Shiraishi laughed, amusedly. 

“Sorry Watanabe-san~” he chorused, almost sing-song as he started chopping off the heads and tails of the string beans, ripping out the string along the side. Almost as if he was pulling out a spinal cord, the support of the bea-- and those were thoughts he didn’t particularly want to entertain, not here. _Not ever_ , he wanted to say, but well, he’d seen too many injuries and all too much of the fragility of the human body to be able to stop those visions from _ever_ reaching him. Shiraishi put the knife down for a moment, took a deep breath, and started cutting again. Watanabe-san’s gaze was on him, heavy and thoughtful, but she said nothing, so Shiraishi said nothing in return as he finished up, wrapping up his apron again, and throwing away the plastic gloves and the waste chunks of the vegetables. 

The door swung open, and a group of three pre-teens ran in, a large parcel between them, and a slightly breathless look about them, wisps of hair escaping the braid of the tallest girl, and glasses slipping down the nose of the shortest boy. “Can we post something?” asked the tallest one, inbetween pants and Shiraishi smiled, fondly. 

“Yes, I suppose. Address on the front?” he asked, picking up the package and inspecting it. It seemed to be well-wrapped, with little areas for the envelope to rip off, and he nodded, as he carefully moved to the table near the back of the store, where the weighing machine was. There was an express post office dropbox near the entrance of their small town, but of course, for packages, you would need airmail stampings, so people came here, to have their labels stuck on. The children followed him, whispering loudly about something inane and lingering in the sweets aisle, until the elder girl rapped their shoulders. Shiraishi didn’t pay too much attention to them, as he entered the weight of the package (15.46 ounces) into the counter, and got out the pen to roll on the stickers. 

“And the stamp, don’t forget the stamp.” said Watanabe-san, and this drew the attention of the younger girl, who perked up, her gap-tooth smile filling her chubby face, as she pressed to her toes.

“Which stamp is it this time, Watanabe-okaa-san?” she asked, her voice high-pitched and curious. Her voice sounded slightly familiar, but Shiraishi wasn’t quite sure why, so dismissed it. It wasn’t like he paid much attention to the goings-on of the town: there was bound to be some gossip about her and her origins, but he didn’t need to know irrelevant information about people. 

“This one is a special edition. Back when Russia and Japan used to be friendly, for that fleeting period of ten to fifteen years, where we weren’t fighting over desolate rocks in the middle of the ocean.” said Watanabe-san, gravely. “I remember when it first came out, the Russian Ambassador himself unveiled it. It was a very exciting occasion, you know, all over the TV, and my husband bought a whole set of them.” The young girl’s face was wide with happiness as Watanabe-san continued to describe the scene and engage them in a story, but Shiraishi’s attention wandered a little as he left the counter, leaving it in Watanabe-san’s artful hands.

Thinking of Russia, made him recall the little anecdote about the boy prince, who’d gotten in trouble often, just like Kin-chan. Yukimura had sounded like he’d known the Prince very well, speaking about the tiny factoids of the stories, and how his elder sisters had either disapproved or been blamed for the trouble, and Shiraishi wondered whether Yukimura had sat among the court and ate food with them, wearing the face of a foreigner, a Russian noble, perhaps. It seemed so bizarre, unimaginable, and yet, it was nothing but the truth. 

Without even thinking about it, Shiraishi’s hands started typing in _‘traditional russian foods’_ , and clicked on the first site with recipes. _Borscht_ caught his eye, a large picture in red and something about a long history at the table of the russian people, and Shiraishi found himself walking over to the produce section to grab a large beetroot, some carrots and the other ingredients of the recipe, just a little too aware of how Watanabe-san’s eyes followed him across the store, not even halting in her story.

If he was going to ever head back to school, Shiraishi would have to deal with more than a few gazes on his back. So he shut his eyes, and ignored it as best as he could, grabbing a pot of paint to go and retouch the fence outside with the new coating. If she wanted to say something, she would say it, that was how she was. 

The children left after a few minutes, screaming about some TV show as they sped away from the shop with haste, shoes leaving small fluffs of yellow dust, and it was a sight that made Shiraishi grin, pausing momentarily in his labour with a moment of nostalgia. Watanabe-san stepped outside, after a few moments, hands wringing the old apron she always wore around her waist. She was watching him again, and Shiraishi really didn’t feel up to this, but he knew patience, so he pulled that cloak around him tightly again, like a warm blanket, to rest over his shoulders and weigh him down, before he did something stupid like speak over her or snap at her. Instead, he let himself become absorbed in the paint smearing over the wood, oozing into the whorls of the old wood, and the tangy, almost acrid smell that always came with this job. 

“Kuranosuke. You work too hard.” she said, finally and Shiraishi looked up, raising an eyebrow. Of the things he’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that. 

“I work enough to make sure the shop runs well. Besides, it doesn’t feel much like work, Watanabe-san.” he lied, smiling gently, rolling his shoulder back to adjust his t-shirt, which was starting to stick to his back from the sweat that was gathering against his tanned skin. “There’s no need to worry.”

Her eyes sharpened again, and Shiraishi knew that they both knew he was lying, but that was alright. She hadn’t pressed him about taking a break since he’d started worked, only ever dropping subtle hints, and accepting his refusals with quiet pride. What was different now, then? Was it his acceptance of that holiday, on the day it had stormed? Shiraishi shut his eyes, softly. He wanted to say he regretted it, but he didn’t, it had been a good day. 

“I insist, Kuranosuke.” she said, her face frowning. “Every other worker in the country is leaving for a week, and you have been working far too hard for me. You are a young man, even if you are unnaturally serious. Please just go and have fun for a week.” There was something very sad about her face in that moment and Shiraishi looked down, at the rippling can of paint, so he wouldn’t have to look at her face and her crinkled eyes. He could almost hear what she was thinking, how she was comparing him to Watanabe Tarou, and how she was concerned about him since she considered him a second son on top of being a good employee. He didn’t want to know. 

He slowly brushed the paintbrush across the top of the wood, letting the hairs of the brush press down into the nooks and crannies. “I would have little to do here, truly, it’s alright. You’ll need the help anyway, since people will come to the town and will want things.” 

She exhaled, heavily and looked at him fully, staring him down. “Just....don’t refuse just yet, dearie. Consider taking it.” she said, quietly. There was a weight in her words, and Shiraishi nodded, not entirely sure that his answer would change, but eager to return to his task and his thoughts. She stood at watched him for a little more, shook her head and returned back inside. 

(x)

That night, he dreamed of his sister again, running underneath the fairground, but this time, Shiraishi’s eyes were pealed through the dream, looking through the crowd, the faces of people around them, looking for pale white skin and the brush of blue-black hair. But to no avail, Yukimura had not come for his parents; at least, not in a form that Shiraishi could recognize.

Small comforts.

The next day was filled with a sweltering, melting sort of heat, where even looking just five feet down the road meant you could see the shimmering heat rising from the protesting tarmac. Shiraishi wasn't entirely sure he'd be surprised if the roads started to melt, like he'd seen in some internet videos of Dubai and India. Even the most dedicated of children were not playing out in the streets, instead choosing to boredly hang out in front of their fans, and stick their tongues up at the ceiling, in quiet contemplation. 

Unfortunately for Shiraishi's sweaty body, his work-ethic won out over his wellbeing, which meant that he was seeking coolness inside the shop, sitting at the counter with Watanabe-san where the three fans were pointed firmly at their bodies, instead of attempting to arrange displays. The air-conditioning flickered on and off, with a weak spluttering, that sounded like it too was protesting under the sheer amount of heat outside.

"I find myself understanding why people say that Hell is fiery flames and brimstone." Shiraishi mused, from where he was slumped over the counter, trying to absorb the coolness from the tile counter. "This is disgusting."

Watanabe-san just chuckled, flipping a page in her magazine. She had managed to turn two of the fans to point directly in her direction and Shiraishi was extremely jealous, but didn't think he had the energy to protest anything. "You should have stayed at home."

"My air-conditioning is even worse." Shiraishi said, eyes lazily fluttering shut, "At least here, there are three whole fans."

"And ice-cream." Watanabe-san added, and at the the tingle of the bell which meant there was customers, Shiraishi peeled himself off the surface, grimacing at the red marks left across the underside of his elbow, where his skin had clung to the countertop surface. Forcing a retail-friendly smile onto his face, Shiraishi shuffled out of the counter-area to walk towards the freezer, which was practically the only reason they had customers at all, today. 

The two school kids, who looked rather like they wanted to just collapse inside the freezer, had Shiraishi not glared at them, bought their ice-cream quickly and left, and Shiraishi grabbed another ice-cream, to balance on top of his forehead, which was absolutely burning. Watanabe-san looked rather concerned by this, and Shiraishi grinned, before acting like he was doing the limbo, ice-cream still balanced on his forehead. He couldn't help but be reminded of Konjiki and Yuuji, by doing this, and his heart twinged a little, but not enough for him to stop.  
She laughed, easily and shook her head. "Come back here, before you melt into the floor." she said, and Shiraishi let the ice-cream fall down into his hand, retaking his place at the counter again, before dropping it on the back of his neck. 

"You know," Watanabe-san murmured as Shiraishi relished in the coolness slowly spreading down his neck and spine with a contented smile. "I haven't seen you smile like this since you left for college, Kuranosuke. It looks well on you." 

Shiraishi's faint smile vanished altogether at that thought, and he exhaled, heavily. "I know." he murmured softly. He knew that the only thing which had changed in his life, since seven months ago, was not the depths of his grief, which still kept him up at night, but was the presence of Yukimura. The fact that his only real confidant and conversant was the Devil was rather depressing. But Shiraishi had tried with Kenya, and found himself quite unable to say anything of worth, only able to listen to Kenya's voice. Yet there had been little of that trouble with Yukimura; it was easy for Shiraishi to smile and flirt and forget, in the presence of the man, despite the underlying sense of danger that accompanied Yukimura everywhere. He could make the Devil food, and ask difficult questions and not worry about being pitied or being underappreciated. 

She sent him a reassuring smile. "It's been seven months, Kuranosuke. You're allowed to be happy." she said, and Shiraishi smiled blandly at her. He knew that. It was just, was he allowed to be happy about being entirely too comfortable in the presence of a man who bragged about spreading chaos and evil? Who he'd known for less than a week?

He didn't know. He didn't have any answers. And that was tiring him, even more than the terrible heat. 

(X)

Shiraishi was carefully arranging the beetroot dish on the plate properly, head underneath the ventilation fan to try and feel a little colder, even with the heat that was filling the kitchen, when the silence fell over his shoulders, like a mantle and outside his kitchen window, the sky darkened. 

"Can you please set the table, Yukimura?" called Shiraishi, over his shoulder, not looking up from his task, as he concentrated on not spilling even a little bit onto the sides of the bowl. He'd watched a few seasons of a popular cooking show, back when Gin had been in his cooking phase, and he'd heard that the best thing to make food more appealing, was to focus on presentation and making sure the plate was clean. 

"Are you getting me to do your dirty labour now? For shame, Shiraishi." asked Yukimura, voice amused from right behind Shiraishi's shoulder, lips almost brushing Shiraishi's shoulder. Shiraishi almost jumped from the surprise, but didn't because that would ruin the aesthetics he'd been hoping to achieve on the dishes. Instead, he pulled an ugly face and tried to elbow Yukimura, who unfortunately dodged. 

"I cooked. You're eating. This is the least you can do. Equivalent service." Shiraishi retorted, as he finished scooping the last of the food into the dishes and carefully placed a few sprigs of coriander on the top. Everything looked better with coriander, that was pretty much all he'd ever learned from his father's cooking style. Yukimura, however, had just been teasing, because he'd laid the table nicely, conjuring up cloth napkins from nowhere, folded into elegant swans and balanced on Shiraishi's flowery placemats.

Shiraishi placed their dishes down and smiled, as he picked up on the the napkins to examine them. "It's beautiful. Where did you learn it?"  
r  
Yukimura's fingers ran over the smooth wood of his chopsticks, eyes firmly focused on Shiraishi, even if his thoughts were faraway. "Have you ever heard of Isao Honda?" asked Yukimura, lightly and Shiraishi's eyes widened. 

"The origami artist?" he asked, as he took a proper seat, and couldn't help but wonder why such a famous man was broken and evil enough for Yukimura to have associated with him. 

"I was heavily involved in France during the Impressionist Era, especially as it died. I met Isao while he was studying there for a while. Artists involve themselves in all sorts of debauchery to properly understand the nature of emotion, it's a cesspool and bountiful area for demons to work with and influence. And art touches people in so many ways, so it's...an interesting world to be immersed in." Yukimura explained carefully, "Artists truly represent everything considered evil and sinful, the messiness and unpleasantness that comes from expressing all emotions, but the beauty too. But Isao? Not he, he was remarkably restrained in his ventures, for all of his creative outlets."

Shiraishi stared at Yukimura, with interest in his eyes, as he took a bite of his food. Talking with Yukimura about the people he'd met and influenced was absolutely fascinating, and he was dying to hear more about Isao too, but his opinion on art was even more enticing a conversation topic.

"God disapproves of art?" asked Shiraishi, with amused smile. That was unexpected. 

Yukimura smirked, softly. "Not the output, but the things that go into it." Shiraishi twisted his lip, and Yukimura held up his hand, carefully, ready to explain. "Simply put, emotions and passions running high lead to messy consequences. So many lovers spats end in death, and anger leads to sin, and fear leads to even more sin. But yet, these are some of the themes that artists love best, represent best, and create beauty from. It's frustrating to him, especially since I patron art with such fervency."

Shiraishi laughed, dryly, blowing a little bit on the piping hot stew. "And yet some of the most famous artwork is religious in nature? Sponsored by the church?" he said, thinking of those old art museums he'd been to, with renaissance and medieval era paintings and sculptures. 

Yukimura leant back and laughed, blue-black hair shaking with the force of his mirth. His neck was long and lean, and Shiraishi wondered whether Yukimura had ever been painted by an artist, with his fine, beautiful features that captured all attention. "The church paid them, they painted. It didn't mean they enjoyed it. Few painters ever enjoyed their portrait gigs either, but they needed to survive. What they really felt, the paintings they hid at the bottom of their scrapbooks, the practises they never showed anybody? Those are where the real passions were, the real nature of art done for themselves? At its heart was love, anger, fear, hatred, pride. And that is where impressionism succeeded at truly spreading the acceptable nature of emotion and how it has become the standard to strive for."

"Art means nothing without emotion." Shiraishi said, nodding softly in agreement, he'd had the same conversation with Fuji once, a long time ago, before they'd fallen out of contact in high school. "I know that. And you had influence in making that a possibility?" 

With an amused smile, Yukimura shook his head, chewing slowly on his food, an amused smile on his face. "This is good, Shiraishi, I'm impressed that you learnt how to make it so well with just an online recipe." Shiraishi blinked for a moment, then decided that he really didn't want to know about how Yukimura kept tabs on him. It was easier to just assume that Yukimura knew everything about what Shiraishi did and said. "And actually, I didn't have to. The advent of photography changed the need of portraiture and the industrial revolution gave people more income to be able to spend on art, and freed up artists to do whatever the hell they liked. All I needed to do was make sure that artists and patrons ran into each other. Easy enough."

Shiraishi snorted, softly, swallowing a spoonful of broth quickly, trying to not choke and failing. Yukimura leant forward, smirk playing across his face as Shiraishi quietly coughed, eyes watering weakly and helplessly. "So it was a complete coincidence that you took complete advantage of." he said, finally, voice slightly hoarse. 

Yukimura shrugged, spreading his arms, lightly and gracefully. Shiraishi's eyes were drawn to the way he held himself, with the confident arrogance of someone who knew himself thoroughly. "Is that not the root cause of all success?" 

"Not to those who believe in destiny." retorted Shiraishi, dabbing at his watering eyes with the wings of the swan, carefully, so he didn't ruin Yukimura's beautiful handiwork. 

Yukimura's eyebrows rose and he placed his chopsticks down delicately, slender fingers flexing a little as he leant back in his chair. "Your probing for information is so subtle I almost missed it."

Shiraishi hid his smile in his soup, but judging by Yukimura's unimpressed head-tilt, he wasn't entirely successful. "Worth a shot. I won't be subtle then, please tell me about destiny. Since you mentioned balance, I've been idly curious. Does that mean that there's a strict progression of events that _will_ absolutely happen? How can you even dictate all of that, and what, does that mean that free will is a lie?"

Yukimura's eyes turned pensive, from the slightly neutral smile on his face, and there was a distinct downturn to his lips. "It's complex. Not particularly interesting dinner conversation. I'd rather avoid it, in all honesty, but if you want to hear, I'll tell you."

It was a courtesy to Shiraishi's mental state that he hadn't been expecting at all, and it made Shiraishi pause. Was it Yukimura truly looking out for Shiraishi's mental state, or trying to entice him into having the discussion by saying that he didn't want to talk about it, and inadvertantly doing something more to Shiraishi? But when he looked at Yukimura's face, he wasn't sure he could see anything except cautiousness. And if he questioned Yukimura's every motive here, he would surely drive himself crazy with circular reasoning. 

"I'm interested." Shiraishi finally answered, biting down on his bottom lip. "It would be rather more unpleasant to know that I could have had an answer to a universal human question and let it go unanswered."

Yukimura snorted, softly. "Very well." he said, skeptical voice in effect. "I wasn't lying when I said it's complex. It's like a web of futures, all decided by people's choices and actions at all times, by the circumstances around it. A billion spiralling futures outwards, based on human choices and natural phenomena working in tandem. But you see, the web's not as complex as it could be. Although there are several diverging futures that come from the choices of others, there are also much more converging choices than you'd expect. Some people's choices are just more important than others', because while others can make all the choices they want, and it won't change their fate, some have entire countries's fate lying on one simple decision. It's contrary to what's commonly thought about, but it makes my job easier, I suppose." It sounded callous, but Yukimura didn't stop in his speech. 

"And once one choice has been made, sometimes there's a domino effect, that immediately happens, which makes some events inevitable. The little girl murdering her father? That was an inevitable series of events, you could not have changed the outcome. There are others too, like the beginning of World War 1. Catalyst events, where the answer is always the same, after one nudge is made. Others...you have to guide their choices for the rest of their life." 

Shiraishi hummed, softly in response, frown over his features as he contemplated Yukimura's words. If he was honest, the idea of a web was alright, but difficult to understand, without perhaps a visual aide. He wasn't entirely sure whether Yukimura would be down for the sort of business presentations Shiraishi was used to, however. "You're right, that is complicated. I'm not entirely sure I understand it." he admitted, softly, "But it does mean that there is free will? And you navigate around it to manipulate events to your understanding?"

Yukimura nodded, easily. picking up his bowl and Shiraishi's to place them in the sink. It was rather domestic, and Shiraishi couldn't help the tiny upwards tug at the side of his lips as Yukimura filled them with water, to soak at the bottom of his sink. "That's correct."

Shiraishi toyed with the bottom of his lip, carefully. "And my parents's death...was that an inevitable event?" 

Yukimura turned around and shook his head, smile almost bittersweet, as he leant back against Shiraishi's fridge. He seemed to hold Shiraishi entirely in place, with the weight of that smile, and Shiraishi felt a hollow pocket of cold start to emanate from the hollow of his back. "You don't want to know the answer to that, Shiraishi Kuranosuke. Both options will leave you in despair, and you know it." 

Shiraishi was about to protest, but stopped himself, with a tight frown. If his parent's death was inevitable, it would hurt very deeply inside, to know that they were intrinsically worthless to the canvas of the universe. And if it wasn't something necessary...that meant that someone's choice was to blame for their deaths, that someone's choices had lead to the dreadful accident. Or that he could have stopped it himself. His shoulders drooped. "I feel empty, Yukimura." he said, softly. "I can't talk to my friends anymore without feeling like something's missing." 

Yukimura's gaze was heavy but unjudging. "I know. But you are getting better, are you not? And what would you call this if it is not a fulfilling conversation?"

Shiraishi's lips twitched. "Are you my friend then?"

Yukimura shrugged, and his languid movements made Shiraishi's stomach a little fluttery, with how utterly beautiful he looked in that moment. "I would satisfy the criteria, I suppose. It's your opinion, in that case, isn't it?"

Exhaling with mock exasperation, Shiraishi straightened in his chair. "I'll rephrase the question then: do you consider me to be your friend?" 

Yukimura said nothing, but the smirk that played over his lips seemed to ask, _'do you really want to know?'_ Shiraishi let his lids shut close for a moment and shrugged. "It doesn't really matter, I suppose, I was just curious."

"Curiosity killed the cat." Yukimura murmured, picking up his hat, from where it laid untouched on Shiraishi's table still. 

"Satisfaction brought it back." Shiraishi said, getting up from his chair, to show Yukimura out. Unlike most days, he felt ready to talk to Yukimura for a long while, but evidently, Yukimura had somewhere to be. A shame, but he suspected that protesting would both be futile and would look incredibly pathetic. "That means if you answer my questions, I won't die, you know. My death would be a damn shame~"

"That it would." Yukimura answered, half-mocking sneer on his face, as he casually strode out of Shiraishi's kitchen, to lean against the door frame, like he permanently belonged there. "What a waste of a pretty face." 

Shiraishi gasped, in mock offence, pressing a hand to his head like he was about tho collapse from the indignity. "Is that all I am to you? For shame, Yukimura, how shallow." 

Yukimura laughed, lowly, and it would never fail to make Shiraishi's heart clench with how beautifully velvety it sounded, despite being so cold at times. "What can I say, beauty is something that lust chases after." And if there wasn't implicit suggestion in his lidded eyes and the way his tongue snaked out over his lips, Shiraishi wasn't sure what was. "But alas, I have other places to be, other pretty faces to chase."

Shiraishi shook his head, with humour, easily opening the door outside to the humid day, now thankfully lacking the overbearing sun which blocked by the unsteadily rolling storm clouds above. "Mind leaving your rainclouds here? This heat and sunshine is terrible without a buffer. I might melt tomorrow at work, and then where would you be?"

"I'd have to find another boytoy, how tragic." Yukimura agreed, with a smooth expression on his face, before smirking softly at Shiraishi's expression. "I can't make any promises, they usually follow me around. But high pressure doesn't last forever." 

Shiraishi exhaled, but nodded. "Have a safe journey, Yukimura."

Yukimura nodded, tipped the brim of his hat, fingers lithe and elegant, and walked out towards the door. Just as Shiraishi made to swing the door shut, he heard Yukimura's voice float back towards him, "The Devil isn't allowed to have friends. But I wouldn't mind being yours."

It was increasingly distressing, how much joy that simple sentence inspired in Shiraishi, for the rest of the night.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ETA (3/15/2016): Edited the ending to be a little more clear, on request of a reader.

It had been foolish to think that his brief euphoria with Yukimura's murmured, beautiful words would last, because Shiraishi's dream was not the usual routine of watching his sister die. No, now he was in a busy city, among people and bustling businessmen getting to their location. He didn't know where he was, but by the mixture of signs around him, in both English and Mandarin, he figured that he was probably either in Hong Kong or Singapore, which was again extremely weird, since he'd only ever been to Korea and Japan in his entire life. He didn't know where his mind was getting these images, because Shiraishi wasn't even sure he'd seen any movies set in Singapore, either. 

But then again, these dreams were Yukimura's actions, he knew, which meant that they weren't going to make sense, not with the usual logic about dreams. 

As he walked down the street, he saw that a few people were giving him judgmental looks, so he stared down at himself. He was wearing pretty normal clothes, even if it was probably a little thin for the more gloomy weather in this new country, but with a start, he realized that he wasn't wearing shoes.

That was pretty weird, especially for a dream that Shiraishi was increasingly feeling nervous about. The weather was gloomy, and there was something unsettling in the air, even here. No silence, but the weather hinted at Yukimura's presence here and he knew that he had to leave, quickly. He didn't know where he was supposed to go to find Yukimura, but he suspected that he would end up there when it was time, anyway. He just hoped he didn't have to walk for several hours like he had in those wretched corn fields. 

The wind ruffled past him, with a cold howl and Shiraishi pulled his shoulders in, eyes open and scanning the area around him, to try and locate where he was supposed to go. 

He was sort of relieved to not be watching that fairground where his sister and family would die, over and over again, but he was uncertain whether these dreams were any better. His dreams of his sister, even if emotionally taxing, at least left his body rested, but waking up from witnessing the cornfield fire had made him feel like he hadn't slept at all. He missed having a good night's sleep, missed having the energy to feel genuinely good about his day, missed having the emotional energy to interact with people who weren't Yukimura) in a meaningful way. 

He wasn't sure if he would ever be ready to face the public again, the world again, when he was this sleep-deprived and exhausted, internally and externally. 

There was a loud blast in the near vicinity, and several bystanders turned their heads from their cold walk of truth in shock. To his right, a large plume of smoke started to reach towards the sky, and Shiraishi's eyes widened in horror, before starting to run towards the area. No way that Yukimura was apart from that mess. As he careened towards the smoke, he saw a lot of crying and screaming people running away, in the opposite direction, and Shiraishi hurtled past them, pushing past them as gently as he could while still sprinting, feet aching from the pain. He wanted to ask them what had happened, but feared missing something important by not being there, so ran forward, until he came upon the smoking crater of what looked like it had once been a conference centre. 

He stared at the sheer destruction, and the smell of death that emanated from the place. God. _God_. Except that was the wrong epithet. This destruction was undoubtedly Yukimura's doing, some event he'd orchestrated for keeping 'the balance'. Slowly, Shiraishi staggered forward, past the bodies that still convulsed in the rubble, that he would not be able to pull out, even if he wanted to stay and help by trying and keep them company. It was too familiar, the mangled metal and stone that would stab their bodies and trap them inwards, crushing their internal organs. He knew the damage they would suffer and how painful it would be, how they would writhe in agony. 

But he couldn't stay. He had to find Yukimura, among this hellscape. Inside the conference centre was worse, parts of the place still smoking, and there definitely being a part that was on fire, if the acrid, burning smell that filled his nostrils was any indication. But Shiraishi kept walking through, little regard for his body. He didn't really exist here anyway, his real body wasn't here, he didn't need to worry, even if a part of him wanted to curl up in the corner. 

And finally he rounded on a stairwell, that seemed a little smoky, and rubble infested, but there was a strange pull towards it, so Shiraishi started to clatter up the unstable stairs, bare feet paining from the sharp edges digging into his heels, until he reached the eighth floor, where the door seemed rather more inviting than anywhere else had been. He pushed through and instantly regretted it, seeing the a group of security guards that seemed to be cornering a group of three people, covering themselves from a spray of bullets in their direction. 

And balance or not, Shiraishi couldn't help but run forward to push away the closest security guard, when he seemed to train his gun on the shortest person, who looked no older than sixteen. They all turned to shoot at him, suddenly, and were immediately shot by the tallest of the cowering three, who'd been hiding a gun inside his suit jacket. Shiraishi ducked, automatically, to avoid the spray of bullets, before he realized how stupid that was. It's not like he could _die_ from this; all that would happen is that he would wake up. And admittedly, to wake up without getting some sort of answer would be awful, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. 

The three turned towards him, confused expressions on their faces about their newfound savior, but before Shiraishi could react to their puzzled expressions, there was a rattle of guns behind him. The three fell to the ground, pulsing with the blood that suddenly came from their chest, and Shiraishi turned around to look at Yukimura, wearing a suit that looked different, pinstriped and padded, with a hat that would have looked more at home on an old-style italian mafia man. His face was the same face as the one that greeted him daily, except completely blank of any positive emotions, and Shiraishi assumed that was because of their surroundings. 

"Shiraishi," Yukimura said, with a slightly displeased look on his face, as he removed his white gloves, gingerly, to kneel down over the three of them, pressing his bare palm to their chests, carefully. "What did I tell you about interfering needlessly?"

"He was a teenager." he said, staring at the glass-eyed boy, with blood trickling out of the side of his mouth, and the three bloody stains in the front of his chest. 

"Don't judge a book by its cover, he's the son of one of the biggest snakehead leaders in the world. He's killed his fair share of men, cruelly and without mercy, and his comeuppance finally came to him and his loyal men." Yukimura said, shrugging easily, straightening upwards, pale fingers dripping with blood and a string of gore. 

"And those people outside? Burning and writhing? I suppose they were all deserving of their fate too?" scoffed Shiraishi, turning to Yukimura, with anger in his eyes. He didn't understand. How could every single one of those people have committed a crime enough to be claimed by the devil? 

"Tragedies cause the chaos you need for change." Yukimura murmured, shrugging coolly, as he coolly shook his fingers loose of blood, and slipped them back into his gloves. "You would know that good people too must die to balance the death of those who are evil. And these were very much evil men."

Shiraishi stared at Yukimura, with shock. "How can you say that so easily?" he demanded, with fury. "How can you be so callous about their lives? Perhaps it's necessary, but it's a tragedy."

Yukimura raised an eyebrow. "I orchestrate several events like this a day, and my servants do much, much more. Am I supposed to cry for every death? The world would flood with the amount of tears that would take. There would not be enough water in the sea, if I mourned the life of every dead human. I have been doing this for millennia, Shiraishi."

"Then you have lost something which should be essential to your existence, and I am sorry." Shiraishi said, reaching forward to place a hand on Yukimura's shoulder. Yukimura stepped backwards and shook his head, and for a moment, something skin to fury welled up in his eyes. Shiraishi's shoulders immediately slumped and he felt that urge to run away and never look back, and it took all of his strength to keep his feet firmly planted and continue to meet Yukimura's gaze, even through the fear. Yukimura's dark eyes raged with fury, before he seemed to visibly curtail himself and dampen his temper. 

"Go back home, Shiraishi. This is not where you belong." Yukimura said, coolly, turning on his heel to leave. 

Shiraishi shook his head, though the blood from the bodies are started to lap against his feet and the smell of death was starting to become overwhelming. "Someone has to remind you of what these lives mean. I'm your friend, that's what friends do." he said, as calmly as he could, though his voice was still quiet and shaky. 

"The devil is not allowed to have friends. Leave." Yukimura intoned and unwillingly, Shiraishi felt himself tugged away from the scene as the rubble started to shake and collapse in on itself--

Shiraishi woke up, chest half-off the edge off his bed, saved by the hopeless tangle of his bedsheets tangling him in place, and covered in a cold sweat. Without even stopped to fully pull himself from the bed, he fumbled around on his bedside for his phone, almost knocking over his reading glasses and waterbottle bottle in his haste. Quickly he pulled up the news app, not caring about it being only 5am, and looked through main news. No way an explosion like _that_ would evade news attention, surely? When he saw nothing however, he quickly opened up twitter. He barely used his account, but it was useful to look through trending hashtags and sure enough, near the bottom, just starting to take up steam--

#HaasBusinessConferenceExplosionSingapore 

Shiraishi scrolled through the pictures that people around there had taken, and winced. It was undoubtedly clear. He had been in Singapore, in the crumbled ruins of the conference centre which had completely collapsed, now. His hands were shaking as he muted the screen and leant back on his bed, to shut his eyes for a few moments. He could still smell it, the smell of death, the smell of blood, oozing out across the floor, spreading blood-red reminders of the fragility of mortal lif--

There was a wetness against the edge of his ankle, and Shiraishi frowned as he opened his eyes. His sheets were stained a rust-coloured red, and Shiraishi pulled them aside with horror, to see blood dripping from the cut-up soles of his feet.

(X)

Shiraishi had called in ill from work; with that many wounds across his legs, there was no way he'd be able to work at all, and going in would have led to some unwanted questions from Watanabe-san. Questions that Shiraishi frankly had no answer for. Upon seeing the wounds, the first thought was sheer panic, checking his side for other cuts like bulletwounds or something, but once it became apparent that only his feet were injured, his sensible side kicked in. He couldn't feel the actual pain yet, so he had to act while that was still a thing. 

Being mostly grateful that he'd never really cleared out much of his mother's jewellery, only given the gold to his cousins, who'd wanted it more, Shiraishi had hobbled over to their room and located his mother's tweezers and some antiseptic cream. Smothering the tips of the tweezers with cream, ( _"to prevent infection, Kura!"_ he could almost hear a childlike Kenya insisting), he started his task, methodically and sort of monotonously pulling out the shards of glass and rubble that had wedged themselves in his feet.

More clean blood oozed out of his wounds, as the small but significant pile of rubble gathered up on the pale-green bedspread, staining his parents' bedsheets as well, but Shiraishi didn’t focus on anything except getting his feet clean and free of debris. Getting rid of the last of the traces of the disaster, of his inability to stop or change anything.

As soon as his feet were free of the pain, Shiraishi staggered his way to the master bathroom, to wash off the last of the dirt from his feet, antiseptic cream in hand. The trail of blood he left in his wake was going to be a pain to clean up, but Shiraishi decided that he was going to worry about that later. Sort of dumbly, Shiraishi rubbed at his wounds, as gently as he could, and stared as the brown-red water swirled and faded down the drain, leaving residue in its wake, that Shiraishi could only really look at, mutely.

It was 5am, he didn't feel like he’d slept at all, and he’d just watched Yukimura commit an act of random terrorism. He felt rather like he wanted to go back to sleep and just not dream, that for once in his life, his brain would shut down like a normal person and let him pass out, instead of transporting him to places where he was continually shown how useless he was, how useless his presence was, how useless his existence was. With a sigh, he turned off the faucet and started to rub the cream against his wounds, relishing in the fact that he was starting to actually feel these wounds against his skin, now that the antiseptic stung rawly. There were slight tears at the corners of his eyes, but Shiraishi didn’t stop to brush them away, as he reached from the bandages and gauze, hidden behind the bathroom mirror, as they had always been during his childhood.

He really did hate bandages, he mused, as he expertly wound the cloth around his heels and ankles, pulling tautly in the areas where it was necessary. They represented everything painful in his life. When he finished, his ankles were almost double their previous size, but there was no blood escaping his body anymore. With an exhausted sigh, Shiraishi leant his head forward, until he softly impacted with the cool tile. He could probably fall asleep like this if he tried, he mused, darkly. 

But he was tired of dreams and he was tired of his sleeping hours being nothing but torment. He had all too many questions and not enough answers and he was tired of feeling lost. He'd been bored of being perfect, but this, this sense of helplessness, of being completely inadequate was so much worse, so much more painful, like he was being eaten alive by his own insides, little swarms of insects biting away his leaves and his petals and everything that made him good, until all that was left were withered, pathetic stumps. 

Why had his injuries transferred over to his real body? Had he really been walking the streets of Singapore barefeet? It didn't make any sense, and Shiraishi was so confused, but most of all, the image of Yukimura's cold face and denial of the very words that had filled with Shiraishi with hope yesterday, was so confusing, that Shiraishi couldn't help but tip his head back and laugh, slightly hysterically. 

God. _So many tangles in life are ultimately hopeless that we have no appropriate sword other than laughter,_ indeed. The ceiling looked so far away as Shiraishi clung to the edges of the bathtub and tried to stop himself from going entirely mad. God. 

_God._ Did he even exist? Shiraishi bit down on his lip, sobering up quickly as he stared down at his feet. Would it even matter? Did he want to know? The answer was yes, because of Yukimura was bringing him this much torment, wouldn't God be able to relieve that?

(X)

"You're late." Shiraishi called, not looking up from Exodus, where he was reading about God offering Joshua, Aaron and Moses the covenant, his broken english only just serving him here. He was rather grateful that he'd been tight-knit with the transfer students from other schools, otherwise there was no way he could have even remembered enough to be able to pick out one of three words.

"I wasn't aware we had a timing." Yukimura murmured, voice low and velvety, like he always was when he stepped inside Shiraishi's house, and like he never was, inside those blasted dreams. Was this the retail face, or what that the retail face, that was the real question here. 

Shiraishi tossed Yukimura a slightly judgmental look from over the top of the Bible, staring him down, with a cool gaze. "I'm not even going to deem that with a response, Yukimura." he said, coolly, "There's probably tea in the fridge if you want something."

Lifting one eyebrow, Yukimura took a seat on top of Shiraishi's coffee table, and Shiraishi mused that his mother would have murdered him for doing something like that, but Yukimura dragged his attention back up to his pointed, direct gaze. "No need to be bitchy, Shiraishi." he said, coolly, lips twitching upwards.

Shiraishi blinked, unable to quite believe what he was hearing. "I can't walk and can't work today because of injuries from Singapore -- which was supposedly a dream, supposedly, so how did I even get those, anyway? You killed a whole conference full of people to get to three people, of which one was a sixteen year old who was probably brainwashed into the family business by his father, let's be real here, and then you look at me and dismiss my presence, like I'm a fucking dog? This isn't me being a _bitch_ , this is me being justifiably angry." he snapped, reaching forward to prod Yukimura in the chest. 

Yukimura's lips parted, softly, as if in surprise or shock, and he looked at Shiraishi, with an intense curiosity. "I didn't know you could get angry." he said, instead of anything significant to Shiraishi's argument, slightly amused smile on his face, "I just thought you'd roll over."

Shiraishi threw the Bible right at Yukimura. It didn't hit, since Yukimura's arms snapped up and caught it, with fast reflexes, but Shiraishi didn't care, his displeasure was well expressed. "I'm not your _dog_ , Yukimura. I want explanations, more than whatever you've been telling me." Boytoy, prettyface, those were compliments more than insults, he hadn't cared, But now he was being treated like he was nothing, after Yukimura had said what he had yesterday, he was furious. 

Yukimura blithely ignored him, smirk on his face as he started to flip through the Bible, lazily. "I don't know why you're reading this, it's rather biased, you know. Filled with all sorts of hot air, God himself is probably disappointed by the shoddy writing. But that's the problem with asking politicians and leaders to write, instead of artists, it's substandard quality." 

Shiraishi felt his blood boil for a few moments of pure frustration, before the calming white blissfully took over everything, as it always had when Kintarou did something stupid or Zaizen upset somebody with his cutting comments, allowing him to act without fury ruining everything. Logically, Yukimura ignoring him wasn't normal. Which meant that Yukimura knew that this was angering Shiraishi, and was going to keep doing it. He wanted the reaction of anger, he wanted to feel Shiraishi's anger for some twisted reason, and Shiraishi wasn't going to indulge him. The Dark Side of the Force was seductive, and quick and easy, and all that. 

So instead, he took the Bible straight out of Yukimura's hands, and started to read again, summarily ignoring the other figure as he restarted the section he'd been in. Two could play at this particular game, and Shiraishi was known for his patience and tolerance. 

"You know, your eyes are beautiful like this?" asked Yukimura, voice slightly sultry, as Shiraishi kept turning the pages, not really absorbing what was in the pages, too aware of Yukimura's gaze upon him, calculating and wryly amused. "Anger filling them, desperation and confusion hidden behind it?"

"That's got to be the worst pick up line I've ever heard, and I constantly had Koharu Konjiki propositioning me for six years." Shiraishi said, flatly. "1/10, please try again."

There was a long silence between them, of Shiraishi turning pages when he felt he'd spent enough time staring at each foreign page, to pretend he was actually reading them, instead of pulling off one of his worst acting gigs yet, and Yukimura's gaze heavy on his gaze, like the slow sensation of being submerged in a glass of boiling hot water, one torturous inch at a time, feeling the anticipation and the fear building at the base of his spine, a knot against his sofa. 

Finally, Yukimura exhaled. "Shall I return tomorrow?" he asked softly. 

Shiraishi looked up from the novel and there was something tired in Yukimura's gaze too. "If you come back tomorrow, I won't be any less angry." Shiraishi said, softly, "I just want answers, Yukimura. And I want to trust you and believe you and when you won't tell me anything, I can't do that."

Yukimura's gaze was blank for a few moments and Shiraishi thought he had failed, when Yukimura pulled off his hat, to set it aside, and laced his fingers together, in a low steeple. "I do not have as many as you want. I don't know why you're drawn to me in your dreams, though I have my suspicions of why you might be, because I would not wish for you to be there from my own will. And I do not know why you are injured because of injuries acquired in a dream, because your physical body was not present in Singapore. Trust me when I say that I take no pleasure in people like you being injured." he said, voice low and steady.

Shiraishi exhaled, heavily, feeling sorely disappointed. Yukimura was just as confused as he was? It brought him no comfort. "What are your suspicions?"

Yukimura picked up the Bible from Shiraishi's lap, gently, his long fingers gentle and tender, and Shiraishi was reminded all too much of how they had pressed into the bullet wounds of the men, with that same grace and certain movement. "You're on Exodus, I see. You read Genesis already?"

"Sort of. My English isn't the best. But I got most of it, Noah's Ark, Adam and Eve cast out, Cain and Abel." Shiraishi said, feeling a little confused. But there was no amusement or smirk on Yukimura's face as he flipped through the pages, expertly, so he didn't protest to Yukimura's momentary avoidance. 

"Isaiah 14. _How you have fallen from heaven, morning star of the dawn._ That literally translates to Lucifer, my former name." Yukimura explained, voice emotionless, " _All the kings of the nations lie in state, each in his own tomb. But you are cast out of your tomb like a rejected branch, you are covered with the slain, with those pierced by the sword, those who descend to the stones of the pit. Like a corpse trampled underfoot, you will not join them in burial, for you have destroyed your land and killed your people._ " He shut the book, with a soft thump and there was a light, mocking smirk on his face as he traced the gold-embossed letters on the front of the old book. "Far too much purple prose, it makes reading this book a burden, in all honesty. But yes, it's true. I betrayed my brothers and coveted the throne of my father, when I believed he was no longer leading us with expedient grace, and for my concern for our kingdom, I was cast out, as I intended to cast him out."

Shiraishi stared at Yukimura, not really understanding the point he was trying to make. Yukimura exhaled, rolling his eyes. "You're supposed to be intelligent, Shiraishi." he said, quietly, "Don't make me spill it all out for you." Shiraishi mulled over the quote, slowly, letting his gaze run over Yukimura's pale throat and the gentle placement of his hands against the book.

"I still don't udnerstand." Shiraishi said, slowly. "You disagreed with God, and were cast out, but what does that have to do with my following you in my dreams? Am I too going to be cast out for disagreeing with you?"

Yukimura just hummed softly. "An eye for an eye makes the world go around. His words, not mine, despite what people like Jesus and Gandhi say." he said, quietly. "I coveted his throne, and every demon wants my throne now. I planned to cast him out, so too, he cast me away." His eyes fixed upon Shiraishi, cold and dark and utterly dead inside. "I, his closest lieutenant betrayed him, so too, the person closest to me, will betray me."

"...revenge doesn't seem like something God would do." Shiraishi said, staring at Yukimura, as the implications struck him. _The Devil is not allowed to have friends_ \-- because they will betray him eventually? But Shiraishi had no plans of doing that -- was this yet another immortal being playing with his life, playing with what he intended to do, intended to say, intended to mean? He had hoped that a God would help him understand himself, but now, he was left with more questions, about who was telling him the truth.

Yukimura's smile was soft, as he leant back against the coffee table, hands coming out to balance himself against the ominously creaking wood. "You've been reading something written by his most devoted subjects from the advent of your life, of course you would believe that." he said, quietly. "History is written by the victors, and that was not a battle that I won. I have won many since then, but he still has more power over me than I ever will have on him." There was a resignation to his tone and the usually perfect line of his shoulders was slightly weighted down from his words. 

"Do you...tire of fighting those battles?" asked Shiraishi, quietly, trying to push away everything he had to mull over about the implications, so he could focus solely on the conversation, and Yukimura looked up, to meet Shiraishi's cautious gaze.

"If I do not provide the balance, Shiraishi, who would?" he asked quietly and almost desperately. "My opinion no longer matters." 

"It matters to me." Shiraishi said, voice hushed as he leant forward, to grab Yukimura's hands inbetween his. They were bitterly cold, like someone who'd been out in winter for too long, but there wasn't even a hint of being able to get warm again, even with his fingers in Shiraishi's palms. "It changes everything. Even if intent behind an action doesn't matter to you when you murder and remove your lives, it does to me, it changes everything." 

Yukimura stared at Shiraishi for a few moments, and his dark eyes were like a brooding sea, rolling unsteadily on a restless night, until he finally lifted their entwined hands up towards his lips, and mouthed his answer against Shiraishi's rough knuckles. His lips were soft and cold, but sent sparks of electricity across the surface of Shiraishi's skin, goosebumps prickling up across his entire body. 

Shiraishi looked up at Yukimura, and there was something very intimate there, before Yukimura pulled his hands away, and stood up, long legs untangling from each other, brusquely. Grabbing his hat, he walked through Shiraishi's front door, not looking back or saying a single word. 

Shiraishi waited until the silence melted away, until he dropped back against the couch entirely, letting all of his strength and energy leave him entirely. How much of that had been a lie, he wondered? "You're such a shitty friend, Yukimura." he muttered darkly, placing his forearm over his eyes, with a low groan of pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter than usual, but I think it served its purpose, don't you? I didn't get to write as much as I had planned for plant trio week, but I did force myself to write two chapters of this, which is better than I've been doing for the past month or so :') Here's to more shenanigans in the future.


End file.
